European standards

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rod

Member
Location
North Carolina
I am currently in Afghanistan serving with the 82nd Airborne Division, however, I'm an electrician back in the world. Since being here I've had occassion to deal with some European equipment. I did a Google search to learn a little more about their wiring methods and I read something that confused me. Under the heading of don't beleive everything you read, this piece stated that the nominal 230V system which is the standard is 230V hot conductor to neutral. If I understand this correctly, a single conductor carries 230V instead of what we're used to which is two hot conductors, no neutral, to provide 240V (220-240V). Is this to be beleived? I'm not so sure about this. Help if you can. Thanks.

Rod
 

bphgravity

Senior Member
Location
Florida
Re: European standards

What you have stated is correct. Many nations outside of the U.S. have a 220-volt to ground standard. Most likely, the equipment is rated at 50-hertz as well verses the 60-hertz U.S. standard. The reasoning, voltage drop issues and costs per current load capabilities of wire.
 

dereckbc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Plano, TX
Re: European standards

Rod, what you see is correct. They use a 398/230 system. Check this site out and you can see what the rest of the World uses. You will note not many use 120. Most are around 220 to 240.

Edit: Forgot the site link http://www.equitech.com/support/worldpwr.html

[ March 07, 2003, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: dereckbc ]
 
Re: European standards

bonsoir rod:

i am orignally from france and the voltage in france are 220/415 and please note that 220 is line to ground and 415 is phase to phase and this is very common voltage in france and freqity is diffrent too is is set at 50 HZ insted of north america setting at 60 HZ and voltage too

merci marc :)
 
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