Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickthedentist
Sad if it has, but can anyone think of any modern equipment where lack of long-term mains frequency stability is of any consequence?
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Only time switches which are clocks of a sort. A short term error of a minute or two is of little consequence, but a cumulative error of some minutes a year could be significant.
Far less reliance is placed on mains frequency these days due to the amount of international trade.
A clock radio for example might be sold worldwide, and therefore must work accurately even in countries with poor frequency control. Cheaper to make them all with quartz based timekeeping rather than different versions for different markets.
Until recently, low frequency was a serious matter for large factories and even for the nation as a whole.
Frequency 0.5% low meant that production was slowed by about that amount, but wages, rates, interest on invested capital, insurance and many other costs remained unaltered. This could have a measurable affect on profit.
These days we have less manufacturing, and what we do have tends to use variable speed drives set to the needs of the process, and not locked to line frequency.