Melted

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Since lights are out of reach, how was it dangerous?

Anyway, you have that measly 110V which is only half as powerful as ours :-)

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

They're not "out of reach" to the kid playing on the roof.

110V is unlikely to do any serious harm itself, but it is a surprise that could lead to falling off the roof.

[notX]

240V across a simple load (like a heating element) causes twice the current flow as 120V. Since Power depends on the product of voltage and current and BOTH have doubled the power in the circuit has been quadrupled.

The effect of this is that if you get electrocuted on 120V you can't be more than 25% dead :-)

[James Wilkinson Sword]

That's his problem.

Then why is he on the roof? And why is he fingering wires?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Since I've been zapped many times (probably about ten) by 240V, then I'd say it's a quarter of less than dead.

[Diesel]

Despite it's lower voltage, it's capable of killing and/or causing injury. It's also more likely to try and hold you whereas the higher voltages are more likely to kick you off of them. Still, I prefer not to be shocked or grabbed by either. :)

[Diesel]

Hmm. Were devices plugged into this and using it at the time? IE: was a load present?

[Diesel]

Umm. Not to add to the confusion (okay, so it might and I knew this before hitting send) we also call those receptacles or outlets. Socket is typically something you screw a light bulb into...Although I have seen outlets, or receptacles that do screw into a light bulb socket. Just doing my duty to add to the confusion. [g]

[Diesel]

I looked up the wiring diagram to your outlet.. The top pin is earth, left pin is neutral, right pin is 230volt 50hz.. according to pdf file I found...We have 240volt 60hz outlets here too, but, the majority of the time, the full 240volts isn't used on everything inside the appliance plugged into it. It's for the heavy lifting. the heating element, some motors (I've seen dryers setup for 120volt motors to turn the drum and 240volt motors doing the same thing), etc. The electronics (if it has them) are typically being fed by one of the two legs and a neutral. IE: 120volts.

Our 240volt plugs have four wires going to them. Two 120volt hots (phase wires), one neutral, one ground. Older setups have three, because they're missing the ground, obviously. So with ours, you can get 120volts or 240volts, from the same receptable. If you want 120, you use one hot and the neutral. If you want 240, you use both hots, no neutral. Hots are your phase wires. We call it single phase, but, technically, for 240volts, it's two different phase wires doing the job.

It looks like you either didn't have a good connection with the plug resulting in overheating on your live wire, or, you actually did overload it causing overheating. The damage doesn't indicate an arc to me, but a case of overheating on the live/hot side (or phase) as you call them...We don't have 'ring' circuits here, atleast not that I've seen. We have what you call radial circuits, instead. The last outlet on the circuit doesn't have wires feeding back to what you call a distribution board. We call those panels, and, ours look alot different than the ones i've seen via online pictures than yours.

The big advantage to setting up a ring vs radial circuit is the lower power load on the wires themselves; since you're actually feeding it from both directions. But, it seems to be something unique to the UK, as far as I know.

[Diesel]

I don't often hear of it described as split phase. It's dual phase, or, single phase.. mostly said to be said single phase. Not to be confused with two phase. lol. Our homes only use both 120volt 'phases' with certain things. Everything else runs on one of the two. And even the devices that use both sometimes use a single one for certain components inside them and both for the heavy lifting. Like an electric dryer with electronics. The electronics usually use 120volts where as the heating element and sometimes (but not always) the motor uses both.

[The Natural Philosopher]

AIUI what you have is stricly single phase, but using an anti-phase.

If you like you get 240V AC but with neutral half way between, at ground potential.

So the incoming to a house would be 3 wires, sinle phase centre tapped..as it were.

[Tim Streater]

Not here we don't.

We don't screw lightblubs into anything. We plug 'em in because our blubs use bayonet fittings - much safer.

[Mr. Juice]

Transformer here is single-phase in and single-phase out. No anti-phase in use here.

And if the trend continues, we'll be switching everything to 5v USB service.

[charles]

but we do twist them.

[dennis]

Not if you buy Ikea stuff.

[Tim Streater]

I don't buy IKEA stuff. Not electrical anyway.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I thought the only point to having 120 was it's safer. If it isn't, then why have it?

But I disagree, I've never been kicked off 240V. I would say it depends on what muscle gets the current, not how powerful it is. If it gets a muscle which closes your hand, then you grab. If it gets the muscles on the other side, you release. Which is why firemen are told to feel with the back of their hand incase of loose wires, so their arm will jump away from the wire.

I think I've had around 8 240V shocks in my life. They don't kill you.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Anyone touching the pins deserves what they get.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

More wires everywhere, harder to follow the wiring inside a dryer etc. = I prefer a single voltage. I see no advantage in having a 120V present = aswell.

Likely, it gets yanked a lot with the vacuum cleaner.

No, I only ever use 1kW, through either of the devices, never both at on= ce. Anyway it's fused, so that would have blown.

It's a stupid idea, as is your radial. Yours has a lot more cable throu= gh the house, ours can cause a fire if one half of the loop breaks, givi= ng you 15A wire protected by a 30A fuse. Best would be simply a long si= ngle line of sockets, connected at one end only, using wire of the same = rating as the fuse in the fusebox - i.e. like our ring, but without the = return part, then use 30A wire.

-- =

Once upon a time, a Prince asked a beautiful Princess, Will you marry me= ? The Princess said; No!!! So the Prince lived happily ever after and ro= de Harley Davidson motorcycles and banged skinny long-legged big-titted = broads and hunted and fished and raced cars and went to naked bars and d= ated women half his age and drank whiskey, beer and Captain Morgan and n= ever heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony and banged c= heerleaders and kept his house and guns and ate spam and potato chips an= d beans and blew enormous farts and never got cheated on while he was at= work and all his friends and family thought he was freak'in cool as hel= l and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up. The end.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

It's not an antiphase or two phases. It's one phase that's split, with a centre tap. If you have a 240V primary, -9/0/9V secondary on a transformer in your stereo, you can't say there are two phases. It's an 18V output with a tap in the middle, just like a set of 4 AA cells with a connector inbetween the middle two, giving you 0/3/6V.