For years certain appliances, stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters used
240 volts and the ground was used to supply the 120 volt items as
required. Current electrical code requires L1, L2, Neutral, and
Ground thus 4 wires and not 3.
In some ham amplifiers the fan ran off of the split primary to supply
120 volts when the amp was being operated from 240 volts. Thus the
ground/neutral was not a current carrying conductor.
When I installed the 240 volt service to my operating position, I used 4
conductors of #10, thus I have L1, L2, Neutral and Ground. Of course the
neutral and ground are bonded at the breaker panel as required by code.
The ground is a non current carrying conductor, unless an equipment
fault occurs.
73
Bob, K4TAX
On 5/19/2019 8:04 AM, hawley, charles j jr wrote:
I have in fact seen some home brew amplifiers wired with ground used as the
neutral...and it was impossible to talk the owner out of it. It has also
appeared in some of the schematics in the literature over the decades.
BTW, I think if instead of saying "phases", it would be less confusing to say two
"legs" plus neutral for the single phase 240 vac coming into the house.
Chuck Hawley
c-haw...@illinois.edu
Amateur Radio, KE9UW
aka Jack, BMW Motorcycles
________________________________
From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net <elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net> on behalf
of K9MA <k...@sdellington.us>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 9:28 PM
To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KPA1500 AC Mains wire colours
Some equipment in NA is wired with both phases plus neutral, so that 120
V is available. Electric clothes driers and stoves, for example, which
have light bulbs and sometimes 120 V outlets. (You can imagine what
would have happened if 240 V bulbs had been required here.) However, at
one time the code did not require separate neutral and ground wires, so
the ground was used as the 120 V return. If the ground opens up, your
whole stove is suddenly at 120 V. Unfortunately, some of those are still
around, and seem to be sort of grandfathered, or just ignored.
Hopefully, there's no ham equipment wired that way!
73,
Scott K9MA
On 5/18/2019 19:16, Jim Brown wrote:
On 5/18/2019 4:28 PM, Clay Autery wrote:
230VAC on 3 wires? Never knew they did 3 wire 220V.... I always
assumed it was still 2 hots and ground (plus an optional neutral).
Two hots (phases) and ground is three wires. Single-phase power
normally comes into a building in North America as two phases and a
neutral. We connect a 240V load between the two phases, and a 120V
load between one phase and a neutral. It's not unusual to feed a
sub-panel with both phases, neutral, and ground so that the panel can
feed both 120V and 240V loads. The key here is that loads must NEVER
be connected between a phase and ground, ALWAYS between phases or
between phase and neutral.
You probably know that EU runs on 230/240V, wired phase, neutral, and
ground.
73, Jim K9YC
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Scott K9MA
k...@sdellington.us
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