Marketing people will always do that. " . . .so and so, say then can operate over 90 - 265V, so we need to do 85-270" and so on. What they don't remember or perhaps don't understand is that it is one thing to say we can operate over that range, but another thing to meet all specs (ambient temp and full rated power) over that range. At another company many years ago, engineering used to offer two of the following three (low-line, full power, high ambient) Our plea was rarely successful, and to deliver all three was a challenge with added cost and schedule slip.
By the way, a 110/220 (or 120/240V USA/CAN) is a single-phase derived system. The term 'split-phase' refers to another type of system related normally to motor drives as I recall. I have heard stories about some 50Hz iron-core wall-warts burning out at 260-270Vac. (likely excessive magnetization current causing overheating) Not all utilities (network operators) do a good job with voltage regulation across their longer MV distribution feeders. _______________________________________________________________________________ Ralph McDiarmid | Schneider Electric | Solar Business | CANADA | Regulatory Compliance Engineering From: "Kunde, Brian" <brian_ku...@lecotc.com> To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Date: 03/21/2012 06:42 AM Subject: Re: [PSES] Mains voltage in Europe Our company tries to sell to a global market which can be very challenging when it comes to AC Mains voltage. In the US, we refer to our voltage as "110/220" for the split phase power we have in our homes, but in most industrial facilities there is a wide variety of power sources and the voltage can vary greatly. In our own EMC Lab our AC Mains coming into our building is high. Our 480V checks in around 500V, our 3 phase 230 volt is around 250V, our 208V runs around 220V. In North America many of our customers have 208V 3 phase. If this is on the low side it could be as low as 187 volts. The use of Buck/Boost transformers or line conditioners to compensate is quite common on voltage sensitive equipment. Our Marketing department keeps widening the operational voltage design range of our products so to function in more locations around the world. Currently our engineering department designs for 208-240 ±10%, which is a real challenge and adds costs to our products. The European market is generally not a problem with voltage. I hope this was helpful. The Other Brian -----Original Message----- From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of John Cotman Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:50 AM To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: RE: [PSES] Mains voltage in Europe There is a lot of misinformation (generally, I mean, not on this forum) about this topic. 1. The common 230V is a legal fiction to allow free movement of goods within the CE marking area. It's a political voltage, not an engineering one. 2. UK mains is therefore nominally 230V, but it happens to be on the high side, and is the same 240V it always has been. 3. Mainland Europe mains is also nominally 230V, but it happens to be on the low side, and is the same 220V it always has been. 4. There is no big handle that anybody can turn to crank the voltage up or down. The power stations and intermediate transformers etc were not designed with such adjustment in mind. No process of meeting in the middle is going to happen any time soon. 5. That said, there is some benefit to continental voltage going up to a "real" 230V, because for a given power consumption, it would mean less current, reducing losses and/or increasing grid capacity, and it is therefore at least under consideration. The contrary effect would arise if done in the UK and, since it is not required for any CE marking reason, would have no obvious merit. 6. CE marked equipment has to be safe across the voltage range it may see in Europe. Its performance, particularly for heating and lighting appliances, may of course vary between UK and mainland Europe, but that's the price you have to pay for a common market. John C -----Original Message----- From: John Woodgate [mailto:j...@jmwa.demon.co.uk] Sent: 20 March 2012 17:37 To: EMC-PSTC@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG Subject: Re: [PSES] Mains voltage in Europe In message <020D0D79F6644B7F84CFED34C7D38DBF@Pete97219Compaq>, dated Tue, 20 Mar 2012, Pete Perkins <peperkin...@cs.com> writes: > As an outsider my recollection is that the decision to move from >220V in Continental Europe and 240V in the UK was enthusiastically >voted in. Not by Britain; we resisted for several years before a certain government official capitulated. > > > The implementatin was scheduled to be a one volt change per year >with both partine coming together after 10 years with a harmonized 220V >everywhere. That simply isn't practicable and I don't see any reason to do it. > > The Continental Europeean change seemed to proceed smoothly. I >don't know of any issues. The UK change seemed in trouble from the >beginning; uncertainty reigned. After a couple of years the UK gave up >trying and abandoned the agreement to change the voltage. > > So now the Euro voltage is 230V everywhere except in the UK >which is still 240V. Well, it's within 230 V +10 % most of the time in most places, but only a relatively few supplies were actually reduced: these were supplies to long rural feeders, where the voltage near the substation was high. > I don't think there is any chance of the tolerance going back to +/-6%. It would be expensive and probably not bring any significant advantages. -- OOO - Own Opinions Only. Try www.jmwa.demon.co.uk and www.isce.org.uk John Woodgate, J M Woodgate and Associates, Rayleigh, Essex UK If 'QWERTY' is an English keyboard, what language is 'WYSIWYG' for? - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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Thank you. - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com> ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. ______________________________________________________________________ - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieee-pses.org/emc-pstc.html Attachments are not permitted but the IEEE PSES Online Communities site at http://product-compliance.oc.ieee.org/ can be used for graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@radiusnorth.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald: <dhe...@gmail.com>
