Working for a regular customer in an industrial unit today & he asked me to check why a 230v socket wasn't working. Socket tester showed no live but all wires were properly in place. No mcb tripped on the panel.Found another socket on an adjacent wall not working either, but sockets in between them work fine.There is metal trunking running all around the unit just over head height & conduit running down to sockets. Since its a cash & carry type place I couldn't get to a lot of the sockets to check them because of the display shelving. Must be at least 20 double sockets though judging by the conduit drops.Big scary cabinet on wall with stickers saying 415v and 100 amps - not going anywhere near that!I'm guessing, but are industrial units wired up with some 230v sockets running from each of the three phases? Is this to spread the load out?Seems logical to me if some sockets are fine & others not. Is every third socket from phase A, every forth socket from B etc?He is getting a sparky in, but I'm curious.

Yeah, it's something like that - we have problems at work sometimes where we lose a 'random' assortment of 13a sockets due to a phase going out.

Phases?

Oct 24, 2007 43 Replies

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Owain 18 years ago

But white isn't a phase colour...

Owain

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The Medway Handyman 18 years ago

Unless the phaser was on stun?

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cj 18 years ago

not now but when I first started phases were Red ,White ,Blue being replaced later by Red ,Yellow ,Blue and now Grey Black Brown. (now I do feel old)

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ARWadsworth 18 years ago

I am sure the red, white and blue became old in 1966. I still see lots of 3 core and no earth cables with these colours.

Adam

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