Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2020
- Messages
- 20,041
I'm just curious.
In the USA you use 4 wires yes?
L1(load), L2, N (neutral) and ground.
L1 =+120
L2 =-120 correct?
Outside the Americas they (we) use 2, maximal 3 wire.
We have L (Just Load, no + or -) and
have N (just Neutral, not ground!)
Additional safety can be ground wire, what is using the residual current device.
Usually used in wet room (bathroom) and kitchen / shed.
Most locations in de house have just 2 wires.
New homes do have 3 all over.
2 wires are considered to be safe for appliances, upto 2000 watt, unless it's to be used in wet room /kitchen /outside the house. (Where it possibly can get wet)
For those locations we have the residual current device that will safe your life if you accedently come in touch the Load wire (and the appliance is grounded)
(I talk about malfunctioning due to water or other error)
Sure a breaker will flip also on the other locations in that situation, but much much slower, you could be dead before it flips.
That's outside Americas.
Reading more and more about "your" style, it almost looks like you make a combination of ground and neutral wire, and name it mixed up what ever suits best at that time.
For the rest of the globe, ground and neutral are 2 different wires, both with own colour code, and usage.
Do you have 3 or 4 wires to a power socket?
If it's 3:. L1/L2 and ???
Ground/Neutral combo?
Then I start to understand where the confusion comes from.
You use 2 names for the same wire.
"We" don't.
"We" have 2 wires.
For AC or DC.
AC an L and N
DC an + and -
Both + and L are considered "hot"
Both - and N are considered "safe"
And a ground wire for the residual current device.
Only reason I'm mixing ground and neutral is to describe tests on OP's system, which has green ground wire going to (what I think is) neutral in his breaker panel.
Our wiring does vary by location, but typically 3 wires from the utility pole, fed by a center tapped transformer.
Center we call "neutral" and tie to a busbar. Usually we ground it (except maybe if utility had grounded it.) Neutral doesn't go through the meter.
The two end leads of the transformer are "hot", we might call them L1 and L2. Each goes though the meter to measure current and voltage. We put the through a main breaker and then attach individual or dual breakers.
The busbar at the main panel doubles as the ground busbar. It wires to outlets, so a fault in an electric drill to case sends current back through that wire, keeping voltage of case safe about zero and tripping the breaker.
If we have additional sub-panels, neutral and ground are separate in those, so neutral currents never go through ground wires.
We also have 3-phase. Utility has 3 separate transformers, not on the same core like a center-tapped transformer. They can be wired together as delta (for 480V typically), or 120/208Y. In the latter case, utility drop looks the same except it has one more wire L3. Each of L1, L2, L3 still has 120V to neutral, but now they are at 120 degrees rather than 180 degrees phase to each other. Voltage between any two is 208V.