It's Electrifying! (Split)

[theredbaron]

In US it may be slower because voltage line is lower.

Not exactly. We actual have 220-230v going into every house, its just a "safety feature" that it only "seems" 110-120v. Its a weird system to be sure, that I couldn't explain, but the guy over at Technology Connection did a decient video explaining it.

The is electrical system is not 110v :

 

[Binky]

Not exactly. We actual have 220-230v going into every house, its just a "safety feature" that it only "seems" 110-120v. Its a weird system to be sure, that I couldn't explain, but the guy over at Technology Connection did a decient video explaining it.

Do US houses generally have 220V sockets? The impression I get from the far side of a rather broad pond is that a few large heaters (cooking, washing, etc) are hard-wired, and everything the consumer can easily plug-in has to be 110V.

 

[FelixNemis]

There are 240v sockets but they're shaped different, all the normal outlets are 120v only

 

[Letalis Sonus]

Not exactly. We actual have 220-230v going into every house, its just a "safety feature" that it only "seems" 110-120v. Its a weird system to be sure, that I couldn't explain, but the guy over at Technology Connection did a decient video explaining it.

The same counts for many european countries, houses are often provided with a three-phased 400V connection instead of "just" ~230V. It's mostly used for powering ovens in the kitchen, some people also have it directly accessible via a large wall jack, e.g. for large power tools with three-phased motors.

 

[theredbaron]

Do US houses generally have 220V sockets? The impression I get from the far side of a rather broad pond is that a few large heaters (cooking, washing, etc) are hard-wired, and everything the consumer can easily plug-in has to be 110V.

Almost every US house does, at least Inever seen one that didn't, but it is possible.

Our electric water heaters, stoves, etc, all run 220v. However, there is no universal standard outlet. Stoves have their own outlet (either 3 prong, the 2 wires for 220, and a neutral, or the newer standard of 4 prong, with a ground), water heaters are directly wired in as you heard, and whatever else we use that is 220 (like car chargers, etc) have their own standards. From window air conditioners and heaters, we have them all at 220. They are often just bare wires, and you can add the plug that you want, or hardwire. it really depends.

This is the closest we get to a standard 220v outlet:
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[oskda]

Not exactly. We actual have 220-230v going into every house, its just a "safety feature" that it only "seems" 110-120v. Its a weird system to be sure, that I couldn't explain, but the guy over at Technology Connection did a decient video explaining it.

The is electrical system is not 110v :

Really weird. In EU we had some countries with 240v and otgersw with 220v, and years ago it was unified so all them have 230v. So it was simplified, instead of getting more complex.

 

[Binky]

In EU we had some countries with 240v and otgersw with 220v, and years ago it was unified so all them have 230v. So it was simplified, instead of getting more complex.

Well, the standard was simplified, but in the process it diverged from reality! Regardless of what politicians and paperwork say, the electricity supply in most British homes is 240V - often more at low load.

...but that's getting off-topic.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Well, the standard was simplified, but in the process it diverged from reality! Regardless of what politicians and paperwork say, the electricity supply in most British homes is 240V - often more at low load.

That hardly contributes to what we have in the EU, does it?

 

[levi]

Have most european mainland countries switched to a genuine 230V, or are they still running at 220V? I suspect the latter, because 220V is within the range of 230V+-5%, just as 240V just on the opposite end of the scale. By my understanding any UK supply running at more the 241.5V is exceeding that percentage, although I've no idea if the tolerance they actually specified was 5% or 10%, and I don't know anyone who'd complain. Even transformer based supplies which aren't as tolerant as switched mode supplies to different voltages would only actually dissipate 1.2V at whatever current across the voltage regulator for a 12V DC supply running on 240V versus a designed for 220V. Although in my experience 12V supplies are more commonly unregulated because a motor or whatever you're driving with it itself doesn't care a jot whether it actually gets 12V or 13.2V. For a 5V supply it only has to dissipate an extra 0.5*current watts of heat.

 

[ClockworkCoder]

Given the current situation, I no longer have the energy for this thread. Don't know watt I'm doing (amp)here.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Have most european mainland countries switched to a genuine 230V, or are they still running at 220V? I suspect the latter, because 220V is within the range of 230V+-5%, just as 240V just on the opposite end of the scale. By my understanding any UK supply running at more the 241.5V is exceeding that percentage, although I've no idea if the tolerance they actually specified was 5% or 10%, and I don't know anyone who'd complain. Even transformer based supplies which aren't as tolerant as switched mode supplies to different voltages would only actually dissipate 1.2V at whatever current across the voltage regulator for a 12V DC supply running on 240V versus a designed for 220V. Although in my experience 12V supplies are more commonly unregulated because a motor or whatever you're driving with it itself doesn't care a jot whether it actually gets 12V or 13.2V. For a 5V supply it only has to dissipate an extra 0.5*current watts of heat.

In Berlin it had changed from 220 to 230 - and I guess it'd be the same for the rest of Germany. We love having norms and making everyone stick to them, you know.

 

[Binky]

Given the current situation, I no longer have the energy for this thread. Don't know watt I'm doing (amp)here.

Resistance is futile!

 

[theredbaron]

USA's power actually is pretty variable. Your normal outlets can go from 105v to 125v, which can mean our "220v" can be 220v-250v, depending on location, distance from power plant, powerline age, etc.

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[matzesu]

Wasnt it so that the decission, AC/DC was made because one of them is better for Electrocution? ^^
But that is too many offtopic, the Pyra charges whit 5 V 2A, USB, not enough for Electrocution ^^

 

[Letalis Sonus]

the Pyra charges whit 5 V 2A, USB, not enough for Electrocution ^^

I wouldn't be so sure about that, you can kill a man with a 9V block after all.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

Wasnt it so that the decission, AC/DC was made because one of them is better for Electrocution?

Power is voltage times current.
Power is also current times current times resistance.
Wires have resistance.
If you don't want to lose much power heating the wires from the power plant to the customer, you've got to keep the current low. But then to not deliver less power voltage needs to go up. Actually you want current on those long lines to go way down. so voltage needs to go way up.

With AC you can easily up the voltage with a transformer. Thus AC.

But that is too many offtopic, the Pyra charges whit 5 V 2A, USB, not enough for Electrocution

You can electrocute with 5V, very small things.

 

[matzesu]

Ok even a button cell can kill if you swalloded it..
But i touched some times ago the contacts of a 9V Block, and im still alive ...
And as my Uncle had Sheeps, i also got multiple times unpleasent contact whit the Electro Fence ..

 

[levi]

DC's actually better for killing people by electrocution. Edison was a proponent of DC and Tesla was AC. Edison publically electrocuted an elephant with excessive AC to claim that it was better for electrocution, so that his DC system would be more popular. But of course, it's much more efficient to convert between different voltages using a transformer than it is to use any of the more recent innovations that allow you to boost or buck voltages, so AC was settled on being used for mass transfer of power at some hundreds of kilovolts, and it was deemed simpler to supply stepped down AC to people's houses and let them regulate it to DC if the needed to. The early uses of electricity like incandescent light bulbs and washing machine motors run just fine on AC.

More recently it's been discovered that if your shifting a lot of power through a thick cable, AC exhibits a skin affect whereby it only actually passes through the outside of the cable. DC passes through all of the cable, so if you're passing hundreds of megawatts is makes sense to use DC because the resistance will be lower compared to the AC impedence if you used the same cable. They're using DC for undersea power cables these days for those reasons.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

if your shifting a lot of power through a thick cable, AC exhibits a skin affect whereby it only actually passes through the outside of the cable

I thought that correlates rather with frequency than with throughput. ?

 

[levi]

Well, yes, AC is just DC that has a frequency. It doesn't matter if you're only passing a few hundreds volts at tens of amps, and I think the AC distribution pylons in this country are just the right side of keeping it simple using transformers against the impedance of the cables. But for big cables connecting renewable resources between countries under the sea, apparently it's better to use DC.

Edit: I don't actually know at what frequency the skin affect appears. I understand it to be quite evident at 50/60Hz, but the cables you need to that aren't thick enough for it to be that much of a problem, or you can always use two cables instead of one thick one. The constraints against using bundles of cables when laying undersea cable is much tighter.