33 replies to this topic

[Swad]

Ok, so as one whose knowledge about electricity isn't... well... "current," what are the pros and cons of the American and __________ (rest of the world) voltage systems?

Is there any advantage for either?

[jbjonas]

Well, just don't try to implement a electical distibution system based on DC - like Edison did.  (don't get me started on all the reasons we give too much credit to Edison - mostly for things he didn't invent, but stole...)  Fortunately for us, Westinghouse developed the AC system we use in the US today.  Personally, I hate the myriad of different adapters that make using my laptop in other countries so hard (even if they use 120V).  My laptop has a power supply in the cord that is smart enough to auto switch to most current sources, but nobody is smart enough to have all the countries of the world adopt a socket standard.  

[Ouch]

This is the most awesome thread on osx86 project - a discussion on whether your safer to drop a hair dryer in an american bathtub or a UK one. It doesn't get any more random than this!

[ampTK]

jbjonas, on Feb 24 2006, 07:10 AM, said:

Well, just don't try to implement a electical distibution system based on DC - like Edison did.  (don't get me started on all the reasons we give too much credit to Edison - mostly for things he didn't invent, but stole...)  Fortunately for us, Westinghouse developed the AC system we use in the US today.  Personally, I hate the myriad of different adapters that make using my laptop in other countries so hard (even if they use 120V).  My laptop has a power supply in the cord that is smart enough to auto switch to most current sources, but nobody is smart enough to have all the countries of the world adopt a socket standard.  

Yeah, but no country will accept to change their plugs, or worse, their power distribution systems, in favor of a supposed world standard, it would cost too much, so you will en up having a bunch of countries trying to convince each-other to use their implementation.

[Beringer]

In .dk the ground fault protection circuit(HPFI) is mandatory and trips at 30mA leakage/imbalance..

Still, don't shower with your PowerMAC, it's bad taste..

[Captain Ahab]

I bought one of those 6" leads too ... from Radio Shack. So I called Radio Shack to ask why the label. Their answer (paraphrased a bit):
"Someone might have a bunch of extension leads coiled up and decide to pull them out to reach an appliance. This one is only six inches (a lie, but we will ignore that) and if they pull on that it could pull over an applicance like a TV and cause injury. So the label warns the user not to pull on it."

Who would have guessed? Which begs the question why the label is on the plug end, not the socket end.

The other part of this great thread is 240v versus 110v if I'm not mistaken.   240v is great for heating appliances, kettles and the like. In the US you have feeble fan heaters and electric kettles which take ages to boil. In Europe you have 3Kw heaters which warm a room in minutes, and kettles which boil in thirty seconds.  In the US the lights dim in your apartment block every time someone switches something on. In Europe they don't. Unless you live in old parts of Italy where the distribution system sucks. What many Europeans don't know is that US houses are wired with 240v split 180' out of phase around a central earth/ground and you can get 240v appliances but they are usually big fixed units. All normal room outlets sit on one phase or the other and supply 120v. You can get both phases in one room and you can have 240v outlets if you want and you can choose to use one or both phases since ground is right between them. 60Hz is better than 50Hz for efficiency. If the world were being wired today 60Hz 240v around a central ground would be a great way to go.   Industrial US uses conventional 3-phase at various voltages but the star/delta 415V between phases and 240 to ground is found exactly as in Europe but at 60Hz.  My vote as to which is better goes to 240v. I can't believe I just typed all that in a forum which is based on OSX.

[Metrogirl]

The stupid user pulling the lead makes sense... Anything to avoid litigation!

A world-standard for plugs would be great, but we're sort of there with the euroconnector which is found on everything from computers to monitors to kettles, you can even get euroconn outlets these days.  Most computer cages I've seen have a euroconn strip.   I'd rather see a world standard for wiring colours.  I was quite shocked (almost literally) to discover that a black wire can be phase/hot in the US, whereas it's neutral (ground potential) in Europe.   Now that is bad

[jbjonas]

ha!  You think the US is bad, at least red is usually hot, and black is ground.  (or white -phase hot, and green ground).  If you have a chance, look inside a VolksWagen sometime.  The brilliant German engineers love to use brown as ground and black as 12V DC hot.  Go figure...  (no offense to any Germans- I'm actually of mostly German Descent -and I love my VW)  

[ampTK]

Yes, a world standard for wiring colors would be nice

But I would be more than happy if only people in my country followed our own standards. I´ve been trough some bad experience because of this.

[kday]

eek, I shocked myself a while ago installing a chinese dimmer light switch.  I figured if I match up the colors, everything would go well..... wrong!  Since I am too cool to turn off the breakers, I ended up shocking myself, along with killing an LCD monitor hooked up to that circuit.  The light switch ended up being defective and had internal wires touching.  The LCD monitor was nearly about 6 months old, so I rushed it back to costco, and got a free upgrade

Moral of the story:  Buy your expensive electronics from Costco.

ok, I think I have gone off-topic.

[Ouch]

In the UK we did away from red(live) black(neutral) green(earth) because colour blind electricians kept hooking the live up to the earth so now blue is  neutral, live is brown and earth is green and yellow.

[jbjonas]

Well that makes sense, then.   I happen to be red-green colorblind (the most common kind, and 4 times more common in men) and I'm fine with new wiring, when the colors are all shiny, factory fresh.  Dealing with wires that have been sitting in someone's wall for ages is another story (especially BX-cable, with the spiral metal jacket).  Once the colors have faded, and dirtied over time, I honestly can often not tell between the red and green - or even green and white if it's really dirty!  Similarly, when running cat-5 for work projects, I always give my assistant the job of terminating the punch downs for the cables.  With wires that small, and colors, or colored stripes, I will inevitably screw one up... On the other hand, I have had people tell me that my artwork is rather unique, because of my odd color sense.  

edit:  And 0uch! I miss the Stewie quote from your old sig.  put it back, put it back!  

[Mactel4SSE2]

good lord, $3 for a "Six inches" extension cord? I got a 4 FOOT extension cord from Wolly World for 97cents.

You got ripped off :-D

[Ouch]

jbjonas, on Feb 26 2006, 09:59 PM, said:

edit:  And 0uch! I miss the Stewie quote from your old sig.  put it back, put it back!  

It was actually Peter, but i got tired of it and couldn't think of anything to replace it with.