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| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
I didn't want to take the OP's post about his escapade with his treadmill and fan way off course so I decided to create another discussion about electricity and all its' in and outs. The one thing that sort of fascinated me and also perplexed me at the same time was reading about how Europe ended up with 230V standard while the US and North America standardized on 120V, there are many factors that led to Europe going with 230V but one of the biggest factors was that 230V actually lets you use THINNER wire and therefore saves money as copper is expensive. In Europe where everything easily costs twice what it costs here, I can imagine that was a big motivation to stick with 230V? Can any of the SF electrician's or electrical engineers here explain to me how you can run 230V over thinner wire in a house but you have to use thicker wire for 120V? That makes no sense to me! Are they using lower amps? | ||
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Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
Less Amperage. Less heat. ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan | |||
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The One True IcePick |
Higher voltage allows more wattage with less amperage. P = V * I P = Power (watts) V = voltage (volts) I = current (amps) | |||
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Shall Not Be Infringed |
^^^This...Doubling the Voltage divides the Current/Amperage in Half! ____________________________________________________________ If Some is Good, and More is Better.....then Too Much, is Just Enough !! Trump 2024....Make America Great Again! "May Almighty God bless the United States of America" - parabellum 7/26/20 Live Free or Die! | |||
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| Left-Handed, NOT Left-Winged! |
Yep. The US chose 110/120V to limit electrocution risk, although it is still high enough to kill. But we do have the two hot center neutral system so we can get 240V for things that need it (ovens, dryers, water heaters). Europe, China, Korea, and many other places went 240V to minimize the wire size/weight/cost. Japan is 100V similar to the US. | |||
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| Shit don't mean shit |
The formula for amperage is watts divided by volts. A = W / V. If you have a 15 Amp circuit and wanted to know how many 50 watt light bulbs you could have on the circuit, you take 15 = X / 110. If you did the math, you could find out 1500 watts divided by 110 volts = 13.6 amps. 1500 watts would be approximately 30, 50 watt light bulbs. Now, do the same math and use 220 volts as the denominator. You could now place double, or 60 light bulbs on the same circuit. Rather than doubling the number of light bulbs, you can use thinner wire and arrive at the same 30 light bulbs as the original example. | |||
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His Royal Hiney |
As Balze says, it's less amperage. But let me expand on that idea a bit for you. Amperage or current is I. E is volts. Power is P. The power formula is expressed as P = IE. To get the same amount of power, increasing the voltage (E), reduces the current (I). For the same amount of power drawn, 220 v requires half the current as 110 v. So what? There's a power loss in transmitting electrical power called I^2R which is Current Squared time Resistance. A given length of conductor even though it has very little resistance to conducting electricity still has a definite resistance. A longer length has a higher resistance proportionately. For the same amount of power, a higher voltage pushes less current through the conductor and, therefore, has less waste. That's why the transmission wires from the plant are at very high voltages and then it gets fed to a transformer station close to the houses it serves to bring the voltage down to household current. There may be transformer substations in-between also. I forget the details about why the difference between Europe and the US. IIRC, it had something to do with lobbying the politicians. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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Unflappable Enginerd |
^^Tis true. Power is generally considered a "constant" in this context. Ex: 1000 watt hair drier: P=VA -> P/V=A -> 1000/240 = 4.16A P=VA -> P/V=A -> 1000/120 = 8.33A Wire size is based on amperage, so 240VAC generally means half the wire size for a given appliance wattage over 120VAC. There are other factors in play, as noted by Rey HRH, but that's the general nub of it. __________________________________ NRA Benefactor I lost all my weapons in a boating, umm, accident. http://www.aufamily.com/forums/ | |||
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| His Royal Hiney |
The idea of less electricution doesn't pass. I forget the actual number that was drummed into me going through shipyard electronics training but it's the current that kills you, not the volts and the number is very low. Also, statistics say more people are killed by 110 v because people get complacent. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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| Unflappable Enginerd |
As I remember, the number is >30mA, of course it also depends on how long you're "exposed", conductivity/resistance, among other things... __________________________________ NRA Benefactor I lost all my weapons in a boating, umm, accident. http://www.aufamily.com/forums/ | |||
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I Deal In Lead |
You're absolutely correct. I got involved with a 44,000 volt power line years ago and ended up with 144 square inches of skin grafts, but I lived through it because there wasn't enough amperage to kill me, just enough to burn me severely. | |||
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Member |
This is also why Edison's idea of a DC power grid was doomed to failure. You don't want 50,000 volts on the wires in your house, and you don't want 100 volts on the power lines. Converting DC voltages has gotten easier since Edison's day, but it's still orders of magnitude more expensive than just sticking a big transformer on an AC line. | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven! |
What I'm reading is that it all goes back to Edison and his bulb. The bulb worked optimally at precisely 100 volts DC so they decided to make the electrical system 110V (DC) at the time. | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven! |
Another topic is just how crucial GFCI circuits and receptacles are: Around 1985-1986 (think I was in 7th grade), we got an announcement over the PA at school about a lower grade girl we all know who had died, maybe age 9 or so It turns out she had just shown her little brother age 3-4 how to turn on the hair dryer that was plugged into a NON GFCI outlet (as they weren't common back then) in the bathroom and then got into a bath. He proudly showed her how to turn it on, carried it over to her and dropped it in. Dead right there.  I guess it had a cord long enough to reach. I sometimes think back to her and wonder how she would be alive today if they had just had a GFCI outlet there. | |||
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| Bookers Bourbon and a good cigar  |
One other difference between Europe and the USA, their power runs on 50Hz and we use 60Hz. If you're goin' through hell, keep on going. Don't slow down. If you're scared don't show it. You might get out before the devil even knows you're there. NRA ENDOWMENT LIFE MEMBER | |||
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| I Deal In Lead |
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Member |
You are dismissing the fact that the U.S. is a 240v system. We just center tap the transformer to provide a 120v option inside our homes. When we need 240v, it's there. I am happy that we don't have 240v for everything. Consider the treadmill incident in the other thread. Imagine now if there were double the potential on that fault. Instead of posting about being shocked, he may have just been dead. In the U.S., we chose to go with safety over cost, with 240v available when absolutely needed, like in high resistance loads or electric motor loads. It's hard enough to keep your kids from getting killed from sticking things in a receptacle at 120v. Imagine how much more dangerous it would be for them to come at 240v receptacles with a fork. No thanks, I'll stick with my 120v outlets. Now, if we had inexpensive 3 phase power at every residence, that would be the cat's ass. Imagine how happy our induction motors would be on our HVAC systems. If you really want a mind scratcher, imagine living in Japan, where in the east/north all power is 50Hz, and in the west/south, all power is 60Hz. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven! |
Which I've read is actually LESS efficient than us. 60 Hz is supposedly the perfect frequency for AC but for some reason the Germans first adopted 50 Hz and therefore all of Europe followed. Another reason I'm reading why the Europeans adopted 230V is that they had a "clean slate" to start over after WWII with so much infrastructure destroyed and they studied our standard and came to the conclusion that 230V is more efficient than 110/120V overall. For us to change over to 230V to be standard to most of the rest of the world, the cost would be enormous and just not doable. So it's basically inertia that keeps us at 120V here. | |||
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| Member |
You'd only need to change out the receptacles, any 110v only appliances/lights, and the breaker panels. Our existing wiring would be fine. In fact, it would be way better than Europe because it would be oversized. ETA: You could actually do it with our existing panels, but you'd loose half your circuits. Then again, since you'd be halving the amperage, you could combine two circuits into one breaker and be just fine. Therefore, the cost of the switchover wouldn't be as bad as it seems. However, this is a country that couldn't manage the full switch to the metric system or to broadcast HDTV, so don't think such a major change would ever happen. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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| Member |
It isn't just the U.S. that uses 110v. Here's a list of other countries. Virgin Islands (USA) Virgin Islands (British) Venezuela United States Virgin Islands United States of America (USA) Turks and Caicos Islands Trinidad & Tobago Taiwan Suriname Saudi Arabia* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines* Saint Maarten Saint Eustatius* Saba Puerto Rico Panama Palau Nicaragua Micronesia, Federated States of Mexico Marshall Islands Liberia Japan (100 volts) Jamaica Honduras Guatemala Guam El Salvador Dominican Republic Curaçao Cuba Costa Rica Colombia Cayman Islands Canada British Virgin Islands Brazil* Bonaire Bermuda Belize Barbados Bahamas Aruba Anguilla American Samoa *marked countries use both 110 and 220 volts standard wall outlet. Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. -Epictetus | |||
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