why 115v and not 230v

[turbozutek]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Hi barman, 568.261485 millilitres of carlsberg export please.

Or, like the rest of the world, order a litre stein. More booze = better!

You would NEVER get circuits fed by 2 separate breakers past NICEIC, NAPIT or any of the other notification bodies, nor past the IET or CENELEC.

I agree, yet, it's not witchcraft. It's done all the time here and it's how devices are fed with 220v: from a symmetrical breaker with over-current on each side of the circuit, because two 110's = 220. The two phases are physically linked so shutting off one side shuts off the other at the same time.

So it can work!

Some houses only have one circuit?

Sure, if they are wired in ring main, that can provide 32 amps @240v which is plenty enough to run a small apartment (say one bed with a combination kitchen / living room). Bigger house have multiple RMs, so you might have the upstairs room on one main and the downstairs in another or areas split up like an RM for the living room and kitchen and another for the bedrooms and hall.

It's perfectly normal to run high current appliances like fridges, AC, freezers, washing machines etc from a standard socket. 13amp @240v is normally plenty enough to run these devices, so we usually don't bother with separate connections for these. The exception are things like stoves and cookers, which normally have a simple 40 amp (IIRC, it's been a while) spur. Whole house AC (which is uncommon) will have its own spur too normally.

That's why my house in the UK had a small 8 panel breaker and my house in Canada (same size) has a 38 way monster with more wiring than a telephone exchange! Separate spurs for anything high power, separate spurs with two hot sides for anything 240 and the rest a horrible mishmash of parallel, split plugs and random spurs.

Another difference? Everything in the UK is protected by RCD; GFCI as North America calls it, at the main panel before it hits the breakers, so every device in the home is protected by 30ma trip. That isn't the case on my house here, there are simple breakers and nothing else unless you've wired a GFCI onto a socket. Grab a live wire here and, well, good luck!

Chris...

[tom66]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

I don't know about the US but I have always seen the fridge, washing machine etc. run off the ordinary kitchen ring main. If there's an electric cooker, it always has a second breaker; sometimes there's one for the hobs and one for the oven/grill.

[delaware74b]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

25 Breakers? Most newer homes have 42-space panels and they're usually 2/3 filled. I can easily fill 8 spaces in a 'regular' residential kitchen: 2 countertop circuits, refrigerator, dishwasher, garbage disposal, over-the-range microwave and 2 spaces for a regular electric stove.

Of course, lighting is usually tied in with other rooms, so I don't count it unless it's in a new home. Arc-fault breakers required for all 120-volt circuits in a home except for lighting in the bathroom and kitchen.

BTW, my voltage has a wide range due to number of homes (8-10) on the pole transformer. I should go see the KVA rating on it. My normal range is from 107 to 119 volts. I rarely see more than 119.

[ben7]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

You would NEVER get circuits fed by 2 separate breakers past NICEIC, NAPIT or any of the other notification bodies, nor past the IET or CENELEC.

The way its headed is that UK will likely standardise back on radials (which would make working on houses so much easier, nightmare trying to work safely when the whole house's sockets are on one circuit and you need to use mains tools, usually means creating a temp circuit...thankfully not too many houses like that anymore but there are still a few) and ring mains will be eliminated, already kitchens are usually rewired on their own circuit due to load and sometimes multiple circuits to cover high inrush current items such as fridge freezers etc and high draw items like dryers etc.
I don't see the UK headed onto Europlugs anytime soon though, simply due to Xenophobia and also as the French stuff especially can have terrible quality control...

Some houses only have one circuit?

All the houses here have multiple circuits, usually one for each of: A-C/heater, bathrooms, kitchen, clothes washer/dryer, basement, attic, livingroom, diningroom, bedrooms...

It is common for breaker panels here to have nearly 25 breakers. Ours is something like that, and a 200-amp service (240v/120v)

[MrF]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

You would NEVER get circuits fed by 2 separate breakers past NICEIC, NAPIT or any of the other notification bodies, nor past the IET or CENELEC.

The way its headed is that UK will likely standardise back on radials (which would make working on houses so much easier, nightmare trying to work safely when the whole house's sockets are on one circuit and you need to use mains tools, usually means creating a temp circuit...thankfully not too many houses like that anymore but there are still a few) and ring mains will be eliminated, already kitchens are usually rewired on their own circuit due to load and sometimes multiple circuits to cover high inrush current items such as fridge freezers etc and high draw items like dryers etc.
I don't see the UK headed onto Europlugs anytime soon though, simply due to Xenophobia and also as the French stuff especially can have terrible quality control...

[gilly1984]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Pint will never die out in the uk Or miles.

[Per Hansson]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Hi Barman, I'll have a Carlsberg Export please
-Large or small?
I'll take the 50cl (or half litre of you prefer)

Or 33cl if you're a wimp

[gilly1984]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

That's only true in UK installations where one single 32amp breaker serves the whole ring, left and right. There would be nothing stopping you having two 16 amp breakers supplying the ring from either side; if one conductor fails (which happens once every 40 years?) then the left or right side 16 amp will trip above the cable rating protecting the circuit from the situation you're outlining.

So much the better if the breaker is dual-pole.

The cost of the extra breaker would be nullified by the reduced cabling cost and you'd have a safer circuit overall, more immune to the effects of one high drain device pulling the whole circuit down or heating up the cable (which happens to me here with parallel wiring for sockets a lot, just plug an air-conditioner in at the end of that circuit and the fun starts).

Also, stevo1210, the UK uses Metric for everything except vehicle speed, distance and pints of lager. You'll purchase food in grammes, cable by the metre, paint by the litre, shipping is weighed in kilos, etc etc

Mixing the two is stupid, yes, but hopefully everyone in the UK who still uses imperial only dies off soon. It's not really taught in schools any more, other than as a historical footnote.

The biggest adaptation I had when I moved to Canada was purchasing equipment and supplies in a system I hadn't used in 20 years. Imperial: let it go already, it's dead.

Chris...

Hi barman, 568.261485 millilitres of carlsberg export please.

[ben7]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

110V vs. 127 V = That would be a normal variation over in the US. Probably varies with poco.

With CVPS/GMP in Vermont, lower than 122 V often means something is taxing the circuit and 117 V means it's close to an overload. Usually because someone is running a hair dryer. (Might trip when turning on the PC o_O)

124 & 125 V is typical for GMP of central Vermont.

It actually looks like a poco in Oklahoma is less than 120 V. Apparently at 116 V and less!

GMP (Vermont) seems more towards the 127 V range. And Oklahoma seems to be more toward the 110 V range.

We are close to the transformer (about 50 feet). The outlet at my workbench measures 120.6 volts The transformer is only about a year old, so that may be why it is so perfect (our house wiring was redone back in 2005. The old transformer died all of a sudden from an internal arc fault)

The 117v might not be from an overload. The ancient pole transformers might have a secondary voltage of 117v.

This is what I am talking about being ancient! An old westinghouse pole transformer (picture not mine!). This thing MUST have PCB's inside! :O

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

110V vs. 127 V = That would be a normal variation over in the US. Probably varies with poco.

With CVPS/GMP in Vermont, lower than 122 V often means something is taxing the circuit and 117 V means it's close to an overload. Usually because someone is running a hair dryer. (Might trip when turning on the PC o_O)

124 & 125 V is typical for GMP of central Vermont.

It actually looks like a poco in Oklahoma is less than 120 V. Apparently at 116 V and less!

GMP (Vermont) seems more towards the 127 V range. And Oklahoma seems to be more toward the 110 V range.

[turbozutek]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

um ok?

So you'll convert to come in-line with the rest of the world!? Thanks goontron, that'll make my job much simpler!

To clarify, I'm working for a large producer of machinery right now (we make and repair stuff for the US, Europe and Canada) and the costs involved in having duplicate tooling, conversion and documentation between two systems of measurement is considerable and (IMHO) totally needless.

Some (very recognisable brand names, no less) parts even have a mixture of Imperial and Metric connectors and fittings on the same sub-assembly. It's a headache I'm unused to having, since I learnt and used the Metric system almost exclusively since age 5.

Chris...

[goontron]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Mixing the two is stupid, yes, but hopefully everyone in the UK who still uses imperial only dies off soon. It's not really taught in schools any more, other than as a historical footnote.

The biggest adaptation I had when I moved to Canada was purchasing equipment and supplies in a system I hadn't used in 20 years. Imperial: let it go already, it's dead.

Chris...

um ok?

[turbozutek]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Ring main saves copper (great after WWII), but allows you to easily overload the circuit if one conductor fails unnoticed.

That's only true in UK installations where one single 32amp breaker serves the whole ring, left and right. There would be nothing stopping you having two 16 amp breakers supplying the ring from either side; if one conductor fails (which happens once every 40 years?) then the left or right side 16 amp will trip above the cable rating protecting the circuit from the situation you're outlining.

So much the better if the breaker is dual-pole.

The cost of the extra breaker would be nullified by the reduced cabling cost and you'd have a safer circuit overall, more immune to the effects of one high drain device pulling the whole circuit down or heating up the cable (which happens to me here with parallel wiring for sockets a lot, just plug an air-conditioner in at the end of that circuit and the fun starts).

Also, stevo1210, the UK uses Metric for everything except vehicle speed, distance and pints of lager. You'll purchase food in grammes, cable by the metre, paint by the litre, shipping is weighed in kilos, etc etc

Mixing the two is stupid, yes, but hopefully everyone in the UK who still uses imperial only dies off soon. It's not really taught in schools any more, other than as a historical footnote.

The biggest adaptation I had when I moved to Canada was purchasing equipment and supplies in a system I hadn't used in 20 years. Imperial: let it go already, it's dead.

Chris...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

The short answers are: history; vision; installed base inertia; nationalism.

History: these decisions were made over a century ago by people in various countries who were not working together with each other.

Vision: the application at hand was lighting, probably focused on large- and medium-sized cities; national grids and mass-produced electrical appliances were probably not envisioned, and mass-produced electronics were probably not even foreseeable; nor was producing and selling such in a global marketplace.

Installed base inertia: Do I need to explain the inertia of 100s or 1000s of millions of electrical appliances, electronic devices and basic things like power cords and light bulbs?

Nationalism: Do I need to explain this? Until recently, pretty much every country in EuroLand had incompatible power plug systems. Until recently, pretty much every country in EuroLand had their own, independent, sometimes conflicting, safety agency; to sell in each country, a company had to get their products approved in each country. A nice barrier to competition for domestic companies, but a prop supporting higher consumer prices.

[mariushm]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_e...ity_by_country

Pretty much Americas, Japan, lots of islands, Lybia, Saudi Arabia and some parts of Brazil.

[stevo1210]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

How many countries still use 110V nowadays? I know USA and Japan do... but I do know the EU and most of Asia is 220-240V 50Hz, and uses the metric system (Except the UK).

[TELVM]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

... But Edison didn't want to say Tesla is right, he thought DC was better... he even did public campaigns where he was killing animals with AC current to prove AC power was not safe and crap like that ...

And he didn't just electrocute guinea pigs

[tom66]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Ring main saves copper (great after WWII), but allows you to easily overload the circuit if one conductor fails unnoticed.

Another question for Americans, why aren't the majority of appliances earthed? It seems like a lot of equipment there uses two pins only...

[turbozutek]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

Here's another simple question: why don't you wire your (North American / Canadian) houses using ring main?

I love it when I plug in a vacuum cleaner or switch on the microwave and every lamp on that circuit dims! I'm sure that doesn't cause many house fires.

Chris...

[ben7]

Re: why 115v and not 230v

I don't have a clue.

I don't have as much frustration over different voltages as I do with weight and mass, inches and centimeters, gallons and liters (whoops, I meant 'litres').