Real stupid electrical question...

With the outside connected to the same source it would be similar to a ring main in water. What do one call water hammer in electricity?

If you are using RF there may be a load depending on the length of the arms.

I guess I should have specified that we're talking AC, 60 Hz.

"I guess I should have specified that we're talking AC, 60 Hz."

Oh jeeze! Don't you know that schematic is classified?! Dude, that ain't no 60 Hz AC circuit! Those are the plans for a center-loaded 980 GHz microstrip dipole antenna specially tuned to receive encrypted transmissions from Planet Elvis!

Plagiarist!

The Chinese made me do it...

MORE CHASTISEMENT!!!

Tell her I've been bad, too.

Reaaaaaaly Bad...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsVHnosRGLI

Perhaps you can understand it better this way.

Note that the current flow needs to go in one way only (this only considers half of the cycle). It goes in one breaker, through the wires, through the load, into the other breaker and back to the other end of the supply.

Since this is a series circuit, the same 30A current flows through the wires. No free 30A for you .

Some breakers need to sense current in both poles to operate. I'm not sure if this circuit will trip off in case of over-current.

Lastly, your drawing shows the other two socket poles as connected. You have effectively shorted out your house circuit and must now call the fire department.

So, let's say the house has 100 Amp service. How do I get 60 Amps? Unplug everything in the house, then put a 60 Amp breaker in the box for one outlet, then limit the rest of the house to sharing the 40 Amps left over?

If you want 60 amps, you need to install cables that can carry 60 amps plus, that would be something like 16mm or higher csa depending on the length of the run! Then there's the question of the outlet! This also has to be rated at over 60 amps otherwise the thing will melt or catch fire! A household socket is not designed for this amount of current! Next is your Breaker, the fly cables need to be capable of taking the current so put the breaker in the first position after the main switch, the house limit breaker, the RCD, and the surge-protection relay if you have one.

Here's a quick sketch based on Spanish regs, with phase at 215v and neutral at 0v.

America may be different but it still holds, put the biggest current drawing device first!

Thinking about it, you may need to change your RCD for a bigger one! You may have a 40amp 0.003amp which would trip when you started up a 60amp electric chair or similar device!

If in doubt, consult a local electrician or find an alternative way of dishing out the punishment!!

Yes! The punishment!!!

Agreed John!

There is no return path so no current flow, so no hot chair!

I was showing how it could be done the right way with the protection the chair so desperatly needs!!

John...

Neutrals would never be switched through a circuit breaker like this, assuming that it is a CB you intended to show.

Hi, North of 60,

"Neutrals would never be switched through a circuit breaker like this ..." - Why not?

Never heard of double pole switching?

It depends what your local feed system is (TN, TN-C, TN-S, TN-C-S, TT, IT), and what your local regs dictate. The circuit I've shown (yes, they are CB's) is common practice around here¹. I agree that in residential consumer units, it is normal to have single-pole breakers, but never is not an applicable word, here. Some of my clients spend weeks, if not months, checking my drawings against the regs (admittedly my apps are for lab/industrial rather that residential installations) and if I miss out, they put me right in short order.

Don't know what you guys do.

Regards, John.

¹ Without that load wiring configuration!

Same in Spain, All double pole CB's, Even have four pole CB's for the three phase and neutral stuff! Commom practice and also states it in the regs!

Are you guys saying that in the UK and Spain distribution panels are arranged so that a double pole breaker plugs into a hot leg and a neutral leg? Are you perhaps confusing U.S. 110 v.a.c. single pole circuits with your standard 220 v.a.c., hence double pole, household circuits in England and Spain?

Otherwise, if you are switching a neutral, it seems a waste and unnecessary complication, I see no need to protect on overload a neutral, but my experience in the UK told me that electrical switching hardware was never cheap. (Note: I have never done electrical work myself in the UK but once went with a friend to an electrical supplier; friend was going to buy a 60 amp fused disconnect for a printing press. I remember being distinctly startled at the price and that was in the sixties.)

As to the issue without the drawings.

Vermin, where do you come up with this stuff? Past experience says you know better than your "stupid question" suggests.

In the usual residential building you have a hundred or hundred and fifty, or nowadays even 200 ampere, 220 v.a.c. panel, preferably main breaker equipped. In U.S. systems that means two poles, each 110 v.a.c. and a neutral strip on the side.

That means the maximum load that can be placed on that panel is the value of the main breaker for each pole. If 150 amps that means two 150 amp 110 v.a.c. loads maximum, or one 150 amp 220 volt load. Of course the panel will accept x number of breakers of whatever value but the total load possible, before tripping the main is 150 amps each 110 volt leg or the two hot legs configured, leg to leg, 150 amps 220 volts without resort to a neutral which in a three wire system serves as a ground or in a four wire is disregarded and replaced by the fourth wire ground.

You add loads together to obtain your loading figure.

In the case you present, if that represent two leads from the same leg, i.e., 110 volts with the 110 v.a.c. appliance between you get nothing.

If the legs are each from one of the two 110 volt legs and the appliance is only 110 you either trip the breaker, one or both, or fry the appliance.

You want 60 amps at 110 v.a.c. you plug in a 60 amp breaker and pull a single leg and a neutral leg. The neutral leg is the so-called return leg. Appliances requiring 6600 watts (60 x 110) are usually configured for 30 amps at 220 volts therefore reducing wire size and balancing the load across the system.

Without that return, neutral, leg attached to one pole of the appliance you get zilch, no magic sixty amps. If the appliance actually draws 60 amps and you only have in place a 30 amp breaker you get a trip.

If you don't have any of the aforesaid safety equipment you get, as somebody else pointed out, a fire.

Perhaps somebody else will be kind enough, I don't have handy the tools, to put up here a drawing of the alternator windings and the relationships to the poles that show up connected to your house distribution panel in a three or four (Under the latest code) wire 110/220 volt a.c. supply.

Just because you can add and subtract numbers, e.g., two 30 amp circuits, does not give real world value or practical existence to your mental perturbations.

j.

Hey! I said it was a stupid question - It's not like I was going to do it before asking you guys, at least give me credit for that!

But there is sort of a sub-question in all of this... Suppose the two hot wires came from two completely independent sources. If this was the case, can you add the voltage together and the current together or is it something like a flame - where if you add, say, two 1000° flames together, you still get 1000°, but you do get more heat (additive).

So I was thinking, is voltage additive or is current additive or both?

PS: Where do I get this stuff? I mainly just pull it out of my butt.

Quick and easy answer! Yes Jack!

Breaking the neutral is important for safety, Jack.

Many pieces of equipment from europe make & break the neutral in control circuits.

Sink instead of source.

It's certainly safer the completly disconnect the power.

I seen situations where confusion & danger resulted from combining US & Euro systems.

If the neutral is used on a normally open component, it might as well be the line [110,220] side.

Standard procedure in Spain is HT transformer for your three phase with a neutral provided by a grounding grid or spike array! This gives you 3 by 230V phase/neutral, and 415V phase/phase!

Unfortunately for me, some of the older houses in the region do run the 110v/110v and this can be a pain in the ass when new transformers are installed with a whole new line setup!

I would like to vote "good answer" about 8 times on this one....alas the admin restrains me.

Of course I have heard of double pole switching.

Well... as the OP has a North American place name in his handle, it is pretty plain we are talking about an American system.

We use a TN-C-S system here in Canada, the Americans do as well. The CEC rule 14-106 requires that the neutral only be switched under a limited range of circumstances. The American code has similar requirements. It is actually impossible, using a North American distribution panel to run the "neutral" through a circuit breaker.

I will give you the fact that, in other countries this could be a normal practice. My statement should have said... "In North America, the neutrals would never be switched through a circuit breaker like this".

Didn't OP say, independent sockets? Different hot and neutral to mains?

Very unlikely in a residential installation (unless one of the sockets was in the house next door!)

Granted. But what if one outlet in the room was wired to entrance panel and mains, and the other was at end of output extension cord from back-yard generator? What then?

This is a wrong schematic diagram. Closely check the load, its only supply is from L. How will you get power from one line? This diag. will change all the electrical basic principle.

The neutrals connected in the way shown in the diagram supplied by the OP, will do nothing.

In all North American residential services, there is only one neutral (otherwise knows as the "grounded conductor") brought in from the utility.

All we have, given the example, is two wires extending from that grounded conductor connected to each other. Total effect is nothing.

It will never work the load doesn't connect across the supply, unless the other socket is shorted..

BTW Who are you hoping to electrocute?

Del

Your mama!

It's like connecting your torch bulb from + to +

Add + to +.

Can't one add voltages together ? 110 + 110 - = 220 v

Analog to RF in areal : If the a piece of wire (±6000km) is placed between the 2 plugs you will have current over the load. That sounds like free energy.

OK. So here's the real issue... I want to run arc lamp power supplies that will give me continuous illumination of, say, an 8 to 10 inch xenon arc-lamp to run a CW YAG laser. Unfortunately, these power supplies require 220V 3-phase. I know I can't get this at my apartment, but perhaps at my dad's house?

So what do I do, just call the power company and say, "Oh please wire my box for 220V 3-phase. There's a good fellow!" or do I have to be in some sort of industrial establishment to get that kind of power?

Oh! Mmm! Arr! ^{Sucks in air through his teeth}! _{^{Scratches back of head}}! ^{Starts making clicking noises with his tongue!} John, over to you good buddy! ^{Exit stage left}....Cup of tea anybody?

OK. So according to your tag line, it's not always fun to do the impossible!!!

It's good to try, but as you say, If you hold your nose up too high.....

Maybe best soultion is to rent a small industrial unit which has the right power supply...then once you have taken over the world with your laser death ray benevolent experiments the world is your lobster...

The term is "oyster," but lobster will do if well done!!!

If this is for a short-term project I'd say your easiest & cheapest way would be to hire a diesel genny.

Is this anything to do with Star Wars ?

A house in the US with either a stove or a AC unit should have 220V supply.. So go burn down Dads house....

If you keep bouncing like that you at least should avoid electrocution, and basis your black fuzzy appearance you already have been through a fire, so it should be no problem for you...

vermin So you changed the question while I wasn't looking.

Best bet is to contact the power company. Ask them if they can & will furnish that kind of power.

Hmm. The telephone pole at my dad's house does have 12KV lines running at the top. I wonder what I could do with some climbing spikes and a couple of alligator clips... Nah!!!

I gave you a good answer for shear creativity!!!

Please look after the little ones, won't you.

vERMIN

yOU CHANGE YOUR (OR DADS) 220V 2PH TO 220 3PH WITH THE INSTALLATION OF A AUXILIARY TRANSFORMER--Your place may not support it but dad's place may--These devices are used for customers who have only standard residential service but have shop equipment with 3ph motors (which are cheaper) to run. Unfortunately the auxiliary transformer required to convert 2ph top 3ph has only about a 75/80* efficiency rating in the conversion process which will require heavier primary circuits to obtain the required output for your load , which unfortunately are not motors.

The power company may even be able to supply you with the necessaty equipment.

Donzi

Vermin, I don't know the technical term, but there is a way to transform 1Ø into 3Ø power in a household environment. My friend wired up one of these doo dads out of a "typical" 1Ø 240v 200A panel. I can't say that it transformed it, more like it split up and made a fake 3Ø source for the mill that it was going to be hooked up to. I'll see if my buddy can give me some info... The power company would probably drag you through the mud for payment in wanting to change your incoming feeders, not htat you would mind, I am sure . Of course you could always get a certain squirrel (who has been unfortunately absent for a while) in a cage and put Del on a leash behind him to "chase him." You would have a squirrel cage motor that you could then transform however yousaw fit and it would probably be pretty cheap, too.

Cheers

In mt street every other house is on a different phase of the mains supply...

So if I wanted three phase I'd only have to run a couple of heavy duty extension leads from two selected houses to give me three phase!!!

Oh I would also have to wait until the houses were empty to break in and use their electricity free...

John

result is nothing....

neither delivers energy to the load nor electrucutes anyone-if the load manufactured properly of course!-.

Well, I found this one guy that wants to play... _{^{but he scares me!}}

You are, by far the most correct thus far in my reading through the posts. "I observed that the first drawing was woefully incomplete as it did not show where the lines originate. At least here in the good ole U.S. of A., most homes are wired for 2 phase power supplied, from the grid."

That is 115 volts for each hot wire from the step down transformer, of course equaling 230 volts, from the grid to your panel. This is generally sufficient to compensate for local voltage drops from your panel to the appliance in you home.

The originator of this posted question, later admits to attempting to make an appliance requiring 3 phase power to function on "house hold power. First as you alluded to, 3 phase power is generally only available to commercial and or industrial areas.Three phase power is not available on every street. You only have to count the wires on the power line poles. 3 high tension wires indicates that single phase only is available. 4 wires means that 3 phase is available, but you will pay much for it and the appliances will usually cost more to buy but the operating cost will be a little less. Electricians and commercial contractors understand that some equipment designed for three phase power can be modified to operate on single phase power. Therefore Mr. Really stupid electrical question asker, What you are trying to accomplish might be doable with some equipment, "but not likely by you". If you could not present a correct and complete electrical drawing in the beginning, you are not necessarily stupid, simply not knowledgeable enough about this subject. However, If you attempt to do what you have considered as posted, send invitations to your friends and relatives to attend your possible future funeral. Invite them to donate to the reviewers of postings here at CR 4 as the flowers will just wilt any way. Something tells me you are looking for a shocking experience. Why don't you look into improving or perfecting the the effort of creating fuel gas by introducing high voltage to water and vinegar.

TMF

A while back Vermin aquired a bad ass laser, for dirt cheap.

He's dying to fire it up, maybe burn a hole into the neighbors apartment.

It's gonna cost real money to buy a big enough phase inverter.

How about a schematic for the laser?

Any way to do some creative rewiring?

Probably needs 3 phases to make high voltage.

You'll just let all the smoke out of the step up transformer, running it on 2 phases.

Stuff like that is never the same once you let the smoke out.

"A while back Vermin aquired a bad ass laser, for dirt cheap."

Just like buying a pet dog, having a baby, or some such.

It isn't the initial cost. It is the upkeep!

Thanks for the reply. I was a fireworks shooter for about ten years. Then I had injured my back and missed a few shows. The owner of the company brought in a couple of new guys that helped out. When I went back to shoot a show they were part of the crew. After I witnessed their careless work ethic I quietly retired. It is dangerous enough when you light off the finally with a flare and the ignition series begins to chain fire out of time, and one or two of the fireworks barely clears ten feet into the air before it explodes and you have only retreated about 10 ft from the assembly. I decided that the risk of destruction was already risky enough without having to worry about inexperienced help setting up the show and shooting off the 2" shells. I have wired several houses and some commercial remodeling jobs, some of them while the circuits were energized, and I have tasted the results. Vermin needs to consult someone with knowledge before he hurts himself.

TMF

Well, I've already mastered perpetual motion... I just can't figure out how to turn it off!!!

Try the switch marked "STUPID SWITCH FOR TURNING OFF

STUPID PEOPLE'S IDEAS"!

TMF

It doesn't have a switch. Just a button marked, "ON."

Residential power in the U.S. is single phase with two legs of 110 and a neutral. Measure across the the two legs gives you your 220 either leg to ground gives you 110.

How can it be single phase? Two legs of the same phase will give no voltage difference in voltage thus 0V phase to same phase! If you bridge a live 3θ and neutral 415V main line, one way to check that you are keeping the continuity of the phase is to check the voltage in the two lines before you make your connection!

Always the neutral first! N to N no volts, N to ground 0v or very few volts! Make the connection and cut out the old neutral! After that, the phases. P1 to P1 no volts, to any other phase 415v, Make your connection to the 0V and cut out the old phase and so on! So as I see it Phase to same Phase equals no volts!

If your system has a large cap in it, then OK but I can't see that being reality!

Is there anything I may have over looked that happens in the U.S. that I don't know about? If so, feel free to correct me!

To get 0V across the two hot leads, wouldn't they have to be 180° out of phase?

To get 0V out of the same phase, they would be in phase! I was thinking about this last night and maybe you can get a voltage on the same phase if the phase was tapped at two points on the transformer coil. Then, those two lines were ran to the house!

I'd go into a big explanation with diagrams (in paint) but fortunately for you lot, I'm off to work now!

It is kind of confusing and a lot of it is terminology. If you have 3 legs you have 3 phases. If you have any 2 legs then you have a single phase.

Hi Truman... have you figured this out yet. It is in fact single phase. If you don't see this... let me know and I'll write up something.

Appreciate it if you could! The only way I can see it is with the same phase coming off two different taps of the transformer! So for a three phase housing estate you would run seven lines! Three phase tapped at 220V to Neutral and three phase tapped at 110V to neutral followed with a neutral cable! I don't think this is very economical or how you guys do it! I think I'm missing the target by a few yards here!

I look forward to you clearing this up for me or should I say for the 'European posse'

Cheers North of 60

Here is the states there is, if you are looking at the feeders coming off of the power pole(s) (well loosely put 'cause more and more services are being changed to underground services in order to get rid of the overhead drops), you will see 2 wires of whatever AWG (American Wire Gauge) size and type (based on ampacity) and the "messenger cable" (which not only acts as the neutral back to the pole, but is the support for the incoming feeders.... hmmm it is the "stiff one of the bunch".......) So this is the single phase system. Out of the panel, you get 120 out of individual breakers, or if you put in a 2 pole breaker you can get 240 1Ø. Ya wanna get 3Ø power, huh? Well, first would be the fight with the utility company and 2nd you would only get, need, 4 wires from the pole. 3 feeders and one messenger cable, or neutral, with the ground being derived at the panel with a ground rod... Along with this, the panel in the house would have to changed out as well. 2 bus bars in the back of the panel? 1Ø... 3 bus bars back there, are you ready? 3Ø A single pole breaker ties in with only 1 bus bar, while a 2 pole breaker ties in with 2 bus bars (this is where the 240v 1Ø in the house comes from) and you guessed it, 3 bus bars give you 240v 3Ø. The single pole breakers would only provide the 120V, while the 2 pole breakers would provide as stated above, the 240v 1Ø.

(forgive me if I am rambling)

Cheers

Take a look at post #32 in the old thread linked below... If this does not clear it up, let me know and I'll start a new thread and post a full blown write up on the issue. There are lots of people in North America who don't quite grasp the nature of this system either.

An old thread...

Ok, got it! Works the same as an English safety site transformer more or less! Thanks for the link North of 60

Where do you all get this "split phase" language. Indeed the description in that "old post" is wrong or at best misleading.

"These two windings are connected to each other such that the polarity of the windings cause the voltage across both windings to be additive."

This phrase "the voltage across both windings" suggests that the voltage across the "windings" are in parallel although stating that the voltages are additive as in a series circuit.

The problem is that the description of the transformer windings is wrong.

What you have is a winding that in its ratio to the transformer primary results in 220 v.a.c. end to end of the winding. That is a single phase 220 volt winding. The winding also has a center tap at midpoint thus providing 110, or nowadays with the taps having been moved to accommodate old lines not big enough to handle load, 240 and 120.

That is not a split phase no matter the phase arrangements at the primary. It is plain and simple, at 240 or 120, a single phase circuit. Hook an oscilloscope too it and show me 2 phases. There ain't no such on any residential system in the U.S. and certainly not in industrial distribution where service is 3 phase and 3 phase primary transformers have to be installed in order to obtain lighting and other 120 utility circuits in establishments with 3 phase service.

Indeed, some older places have installed 2 services, e.g., 3 phase 220, 440, or 880, and in some places 660, and 240 1 phase on 3 wires inclusive of the center tap assigned and grounded as a neutral and ground but that has just been changed to a floating neutral and a ground.

j.

The only way to look at the phase issue is to refer back to the source of the phases, i.e., the rotary generating machine we call an alternator.

For simplicities sake consider 3 alternator stator windings as arranged to connect with each other at 3 points in the circular rotation of the machine, i.e., 0 or 360 degrees, 120 degrees, and 240 degrees.

Thus the 0 point yields one tap, the 120 point a second, and the 240 a third, hence the three phases, the voltage generated across the 0 to 120 winding, phase "A," the voltage across, the 120 and 240 winding phase "B," and the voltage across the 240 to 360 winding phase "C."

It is the relationship between rotation, the windings, and the magnetic fields, that produce the three traces, if we look at an oscilloscope, that produce three phases 120 degrees out of "phase" with each other.

I'm doing here a lousy job insofar as my terminology is not strictly correct, and also because the windings of an alternator are not as simple as I have just made them.

But, when you consider what I have laid out here, albeit poorly for failure momentarily of memory, and consider windings around a rotor, and the magnetic field getting closer and then further from each winding in succession, you can see why the three phases and why the sine wave of any one individual phase. All the sine wave is, is a replication in current flow, of the changing material (Mechanical if you will) relationship between the windings and the revolving magnetic fields.

I am sure many of you, at one time or another, built a crude dc electric motor out of a few nails, some bell wire, a cork, and a bit of glass tubing. Then we turned that around and made it into a generator.

The thought occurs! Could we make this easier to understand, to visualize, by making a three phase version with the same crude tools. I wonder if that would work?

For those with tools and access. Take a multi-trace oscilloscope someplace where 3 phase is available and hook each trace to one phase. Each sine wave will appear 120 degrees from the prior. Think back to the rotating machine generating them and things should be much clearer.

j.

P.S. If somebody will tell me how you all do it I may even draw up plans for such a machine and post them.

j.

I was going to explain these two options with pictures but here you go the "North of 60" has expained everything. 100% right answer.

VERMIN;

I see you're at it again---

1-If the source supply from the two "sockets" are from the same supply panel or transformer leg you've got nothing!

2-If the source supply from the two "sockets" are from different supply panel or transformer legs you've got 220v at 30A across your load (with no "load" ground protection).

Yes it would electrocute someone who would come in contact with a faulty device (hot chassis) and another grounded source (concrete, steel framing,etc).

Wouldn't bother any one else in the neighborhood !

Wouldn't burn down the house unless the device was not rated for the supply voltage

in (2) and/or was defective.

Any thing else?

Donzi

Yeah... What about something like this?

My sister says this one is better...