G.Kleinschmidt said:
And 240V can't be that bad. I zapped myself with it at least half a dozen times as a kid playing with wires and lightbulbs and stuff(or perhaps I just had more luck than brains). These days RCD's are mandatory.
Yeah.. It all depends on circumstances. Still, given the choice between catching 120 or 240, I'll choose the former.
Yeah, I believe I stated that when I first pointed it out.
This thread is all about picky though, is it not?
In truth, as long as a post is written such that I understand its meaning without excessive effort, I dont't really even notice or care about those details, with the exception of the previously mentioned homophone speed bumps. That's just a bit of a hangup for me. I'm not bothered when it's someone who's obviously inexperienced with the language, but those who are should seriously work on it. It's an easy few words. Learn them and you don't look like a tool.
-Nick
Arx said:
Yeah.. It all depends on circumstances. Still, given the choice between catching 120 or 240, I'll choose the former.
Yeah, I believe I stated that when I first pointed it out.
This thread is all about picky though, is it not?
In truth, as long as a post is written such that I understand its meaning without excessive effort, I dont't really even notice or care about those details, with the exception of the previously mentioned homophone speed bumps. That's just a bit of a hangup for me. I'm not bothered when it's someone who's obviously inexperienced with the language, but those who are should seriously work on it. It's an easy few words. Learn them and you don't look like a tool.
-Nick
No worries m8!
Cheers,
Glen
Re: Re: Re: Re: Boldly going where angels fear to tread...
Yes, it did. In Paris at least. I don't remember seeing lower mains voltages in the provinces. Paris was one of the first cities in the world to be wired for electricity and one of the first with electric light.
Back in 1989 I was working with EDF (Electricitie De France) on the bicentenary celebrations. The EDF was also celebrating its 100th year. We had a number of children and grandchildren of the original subscribers as guests. But EDF was not the first electric company in France. If you take a walk around Paris you may still find manhole covers that say "Edison Electric." Look for a light bulb with rays coming out of it.
So yes, there were other voltages in Paris, right up the 1980s. Some of the last 110V neighborhoods on the left bank were being switched over to 220V in the late 80s.
Much of Paris was, perhaps still is, wired in "bi-phasé." That means you have two legs of 110V each. Between the two you have 220V. No grounded neutral there - as found in North America! Commercial buildings often had 4 phases coming in - 2X bi-phasé. With that 4 leg system, it made connecting 3 phase equipment impossible. So the EDF would install a transformer to convert 4 phase to 3. They were even nice enough to put the meter after the transformer, so that the client did not pay for transformer losses.
20 years ago one could still easily find 110V light bulbs in Paris for the older sections. 110/220V auto-transformers were also popular. And if you know where to shop, you could find 230V bulbs for sections of the city were the mains were a bit hot.
So true! Electrical systems in North America and Europe are all pretty darn good. Most of the world does not have it so good. (vernacular, there). So it's sort of silly to complain about it.
7N7 said:
Yes, it did. In Paris at least. I don't remember seeing lower mains voltages in the provinces. Paris was one of the first cities in the world to be wired for electricity and one of the first with electric light.
Back in 1989 I was working with EDF (Electricitie De France) on the bicentenary celebrations. The EDF was also celebrating its 100th year. We had a number of children and grandchildren of the original subscribers as guests. But EDF was not the first electric company in France. If you take a walk around Paris you may still find manhole covers that say "Edison Electric." Look for a light bulb with rays coming out of it.
So yes, there were other voltages in Paris, right up the 1980s. Some of the last 110V neighborhoods on the left bank were being switched over to 220V in the late 80s.
Much of Paris was, perhaps still is, wired in "bi-phasé." That means you have two legs of 110V each. Between the two you have 220V. No grounded neutral there - as found in North America! Commercial buildings often had 4 phases coming in - 2X bi-phasé. With that 4 leg system, it made connecting 3 phase equipment impossible. So the EDF would install a transformer to convert 4 phase to 3. They were even nice enough to put the meter after the transformer, so that the client did not pay for transformer losses.
20 years ago one could still easily find 110V light bulbs in Paris for the older sections. 110/220V auto-transformers were also popular. And if you know where to shop, you could find 230V bulbs for sections of the city were the mains were a bit hot.
So true! Electrical systems in North America and Europe are all pretty darn good. Most of the world does not have it so good. (vernacular, there). So it's sort of silly to complain about it.
Except in the interest of continual improvement.
I remember, from when I was a kid in England, seeing multiple appliances connected to cords hanging from the ceiling electric light fixture, using a series of bayonet-fitting 'adaptors' (the UK doesn't use Edison screw). I shuddered, but it wasn't my house so I didn't say much. That was an old building that still had round-pin 5A and 10A (unfused) wall sockets in places, but far too few of them. (Pet hate: why do builders 'economize' on wall sockets?)
I moved about a year ago to work in Ireland as lighting tech (I have no ticket but work very closely with electricians, and generally find I understand electricity better than they do) from Australia. My initial impressions were that fused plugs and ring mains were the weirdest things I had ever come across.
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that the fused plug is the legacy of ring mains, where the ring can deliver far greater current than any one appliance on the ring could realistically use. This is different from the system in Australia, for example, where a series of 10A sockets would generally be fed from only a 16A circuit. Fused plugs are not used outside the domestic and office settings over here though, for industrial applications the move is made to ceeform or in older installations, un-fused 15 amp plugs. New hotels are still installing un-fused 5 amp sockets for lighting-only circuits.
I worked in one of the large Dublin theatres when I got here (no, I'm not saying which) and having just come from the land of portable appliance testing and tagging obsession found the electrical maintenance standards truly horrifying. I think the worst I saw was 415V between two channels on the same lighting bar; only protected by one layer insulation as the outer sheath had worn through. No one seemed to think anything of it, even though a good yank would cut through the insulation remaining. I've been told the other theatres in Dublin are the same.
My own preference is definitely for a 240/415V system, I've had to hump 400A cable around before, I find the concept of something as heavy as 800A cable really disturbing.
Though I know in the US the industrial/commercial side of things is 220V
Oops, I seem to have written an essay. Electrics is much more my specialty than electronics, can you tell?
edit: capitalisation
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that the fused plug is the legacy of ring mains, where the ring can deliver far greater current than any one appliance on the ring could realistically use. This is different from the system in Australia, for example, where a series of 10A sockets would generally be fed from only a 16A circuit. Fused plugs are not used outside the domestic and office settings over here though, for industrial applications the move is made to ceeform or in older installations, un-fused 15 amp plugs. New hotels are still installing un-fused 5 amp sockets for lighting-only circuits.
I worked in one of the large Dublin theatres when I got here (no, I'm not saying which) and having just come from the land of portable appliance testing and tagging obsession found the electrical maintenance standards truly horrifying. I think the worst I saw was 415V between two channels on the same lighting bar; only protected by one layer insulation as the outer sheath had worn through. No one seemed to think anything of it, even though a good yank would cut through the insulation remaining. I've been told the other theatres in Dublin are the same.
My own preference is definitely for a 240/415V system, I've had to hump 400A cable around before, I find the concept of something as heavy as 800A cable really disturbing.
Though I know in the US the industrial/commercial side of things is 220VOops, I seem to have written an essay. Electrics is much more my specialty than electronics, can you tell?
edit: capitalisation
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Boldly going where angels fear to tread...
Thanks very much for that information; it seems that my suspicions are confirmed, in that the fittings seems to have survived the changes. Yes of course there are ELCBs/RCDs but I would say given the horrid flimsy fittings and the ludicrous means of securing sockets to the wall (inside a plastic cup with a couple of bent tin things) they are a Very Good Idea!
7N7
panomaniac said:
Yes, it did. In Paris at least. I don't remember seeing lower mains voltages in the provinces. Paris was one of the first cities in the world to be wired for electricity and one of the first with electric light.
Back in 1989 I was working with EDF (Electricitie De France) on the bicentenary celebrations. The EDF was also celebrating its 100th year. We had a number of children and grandchildren of the original subscribers as guests. But EDF was not the first electric company in France. If you take a walk around Paris you may still find manhole covers that say "Edison Electric." Look for a light bulb with rays coming out of it.
So yes, there were other voltages in Paris, right up the 1980s. Some of the last 110V neighborhoods on the left bank were being switched over to 220V in the late 80s.
Much of Paris was, perhaps still is, wired in "bi-phas�." That means you have two legs of 110V each. Between the two you have 220V. No grounded neutral there - as found in North America! Commercial buildings often had 4 phases coming in - 2X bi-phas�. With that 4 leg system, it made connecting 3 phase equipment impossible. So the EDF would install a transformer to convert 4 phase to 3. They were even nice enough to put the meter after the transformer, so that the client did not pay for transformer losses.
20 years ago one could still easily find 110V light bulbs in Paris for the older sections. 110/220V auto-transformers were also popular. And if you know where to shop, you could find 230V bulbs for sections of the city were the mains were a bit hot.
So true! Electrical systems in North America and Europe are all pretty darn good. Most of the world does not have it so good. (vernacular, there). So it's sort of silly to complain about it.
Thanks very much for that information; it seems that my suspicions are confirmed, in that the fittings seems to have survived the changes. Yes of course there are ELCBs/RCDs but I would say given the horrid flimsy fittings and the ludicrous means of securing sockets to the wall (inside a plastic cup with a couple of bent tin things) they are a Very Good Idea!
7N7
ilimzn said:
Actually, she was right. Don't know about the french but we inherited the german standard and nowadays each socket has an earth line, but it is still not polarized, so that's a 'failing'.
Having lived in the US, I am sorry to say that the electrics are shoddy. 117V might look safer but it will kill you. it's not like 230 will kill you twice over, because it's twice the value. What did shock me were the sockets and plugs (often unplated brass plugs that tend to fall out of the equally constructed sockets on their own!), wiring without counduits in wooden frames and amidst cellulose insulation, and the fact that half the mains voltage means twice the mains current, which means 4 times the heat over bad contact surfaces, and they are considerably worse in the US than in Germany or here. Also the overhead electric lines (we put ours in the ground around the time of the Austro-Ugric empire i think
Sorry for the OT
Thanks for that.
My girlfriend was arguing in favour of the German system along the lines posted here - i.e. it doesn't cause problems etc.
It IS true that one can get away with murder with electricity, but it's not a great career choice!
From what you say I would keep one hand in my pocket at all times - and carry a fire extinguisher in the other hand!
Best of luck
7N7
I think all early electrical systems were very scary affairs. I work on equipment from the 1920's and up. Very frightening stuff. They even changed the mains frequency from 25 Hz to 60 Hz in Canada and probably the 'States too.
Look in any old catalog for electrical items and you'll wonder how our forefathers (and foremothers) survived.
-Chris
Look in any old catalog for electrical items and you'll wonder how our forefathers (and foremothers) survived.
-Chris
Jeepers!
And I thought I was the only member that "senior" around!
Long live the venerable old BC double (or triple) adapter. A mate of mine at varsity had 15 of these devices strung in a row, each with the angled output switched. Neatly annotated, including a heater, toaster and water boiler ........ (230V here)
Please allow: I recall one evening when a few of us bought those cylindrical Rolo toffees - some dozen came in a barrel-like wrapping with cardboard discs in between. Exactly the size of a BC plug .....
Well, you've guessed it. (31 needed all in all.)
And I thought I was the only member that "senior" around!
Long live the venerable old BC double (or triple) adapter. A mate of mine at varsity had 15 of these devices strung in a row, each with the angled output switched. Neatly annotated, including a heater, toaster and water boiler ........ (230V here)
Please allow: I recall one evening when a few of us bought those cylindrical Rolo toffees - some dozen came in a barrel-like wrapping with cardboard discs in between. Exactly the size of a BC plug .....
Well, you've guessed it. (31 needed all in all.)
Then I hate to think what a bad Yank would do!
I lived for a few years in Sydney's northern beaches, in a small 2-bedroom house that had been built in the mid-1940s as a 'weekender'. The house wiiring was appalling, with single-stranded wire of about 18 gauge and insulation made of some sort of hard black rubber that crumbled if it got bent. You could get a shock from a vertical water pipe that ran down the outside of the house if you were touching the aluminium cladding of the wall at the same time.
In another house nearby, the ceiling light fixture was 'grounded' by connecting it to the live (active) side of the mains. The hot water service was a 'Simplex' so-called instant water heater (i.e. no tank). It used 3-phase 440v power through three little vertical coils in a glass tube. The hearter was switched on by a water pressure activated three-pole switch.
In Australia, it's quite common for the standard mains plugs, the pins of which are flat and rather thin, to get too hot if fitted to appliances that demand anything close to the 10 amps of current for which these plugs are supposedly rated.
The British ring-main may not be perfect but it makes reasonable sense. It uses sturdy plugs with thick pins capable of passing their rated maximum current of 13 amps. The 'ring' itself has a 30 amp fuse and each plug has a removable cartridge fuse that can be bought in a range of ratings from 1 to 13 amps.
Electrical distribution
Yes..very bad Hemmingway!
The "rest of the world"...down here we have no functional grounds, so the 220 is floating around.
We have two to three outages per month, oftentimes with a voltage sag before or after the outage. One sag lasted long enough for the curious me to grab my DVOM to check the voltage.....63VAC(RMS).
Sometimes the cause of these outages is thieves pulling down live lines, spooling them up & selling the cables for the copper.
The common house here is maxxed out at thirty amps, thats' why most all houses here have "mini" fridges, Dryers,Washers.
________________________________Rick...........
Yes..very bad Hemmingway!
The "rest of the world"...down here we have no functional grounds, so the 220 is floating around.
We have two to three outages per month, oftentimes with a voltage sag before or after the outage. One sag lasted long enough for the curious me to grab my DVOM to check the voltage.....63VAC(RMS).
Sometimes the cause of these outages is thieves pulling down live lines, spooling them up & selling the cables for the copper.
The common house here is maxxed out at thirty amps, thats' why most all houses here have "mini" fridges, Dryers,Washers.
________________________________Rick...........
thevoice said:
Ha! Yes! That gave me a laugh.
I spent several decades as a theater tech, lighting mostly. My father did too, and I learned from him. It has always amazed us how little electricians know about electricity. I was always surprised and pleased to find one who did know his stuff. But I mostly spent my time rewiring bad electrical installations. They don't call those guys "sparky" for nothing.It's good to know that Ireland is no exception.
And pity the poor fellows who are the "Electricians" in major hotels. Ask for a heavy electrical connection in a hotel ballroom- then stand back and be amazed. It will take hours when it should take minutes, and it's sure to be done wrong. To be fair, most of these guys are just general maintenance, but they are the only ones authorized to tie into the system. Sparks and cuss words a-plenty are guaranteed.
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