[Elecraft] KPA1500 AC Mains wire colours

[hawley, charles j jr]

I have in fact seen some home brew amplifiers wired with ground used as the neutral...and it was impossible to talk the owner out of it. It has also appeared in some of the schematics in the literature over the decades.

BTW, I think if instead of saying "phases", it would be less confusing to say two "legs" plus neutral for the single phase 240 vac coming into the house.

Chuck Hawley
 c-hawley at illinois.edu

 Amateur Radio, KE9UW
 aka Jack, BMW Motorcycles

________________________________
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net <elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of K9MA <k9ma at sdellington.us>
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2019 9:28 PM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KPA1500 AC Mains wire colours

Some equipment in NA is wired with both phases plus neutral, so that 120
V is available. Electric clothes driers and stoves, for example, which
have light bulbs and sometimes 120 V outlets. (You can imagine what
would have happened if 240 V bulbs had been required here.) However, at
one time the code did not require separate neutral and ground wires, so
the ground was used as the 120 V return. If the ground opens up, your
whole stove is suddenly at 120 V. Unfortunately, some of those are still
around, and seem to be sort of grandfathered, or just ignored.

Hopefully, there's no ham equipment wired that way!

73,
Scott K9MA



On 5/18/2019 19:16, Jim Brown wrote:
> On 5/18/2019 4:28 PM, Clay Autery wrote:
>> 230VAC on 3 wires?  Never knew they did 3 wire 220V....  I always
>> assumed it was still 2 hots and ground (plus an optional neutral).
>
> Two hots (phases) and ground is three wires. Single-phase power
> normally comes into a building in North America as two phases and a
> neutral. We connect a 240V load between the two phases, and a 120V
> load between one phase and a neutral. It's not unusual to feed a
> sub-panel with both phases, neutral, and ground so that the panel can
> feed both 120V and 240V loads. The key here is that loads must NEVER
> be connected between a phase and ground, ALWAYS between phases or
> between phase and neutral.
>
> You probably know that EU runs on 230/240V, wired phase, neutral, and
> ground.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
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--
Scott  K9MA

k9ma at sdellington.us

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