In need of a neutral?

what did you spend in the end to the new transformer
but it might be the best gues on electronic safty

I found one new for $65 USD So I think it was worth the cost.

My phase converter passes through the two original single phase legs and generates the third leg. The transformer is hooked up across the two original single phase lines. Going into xformer the voltage is about 226v and about 115v on the load side.

I can't imagine that the coil will be to sensitive to not like 115v over the listed 110v right?

Type_Zero:

Glad to see everything is up and running. You should be fine with 115V. You likely measured that when everyone in the neighborhood was running their central air conditioners full blast! LOL. If you measure again at night, or on a cool day, you will likely measure 120V. In any event, you should be fine.

When you talk about two single phase lines, I understand what you’re talking about, but for the benefit of our European friends I feel I need to explain. Tommy, in order to be brief I really didn’t fully explain how our power system works over here. Virtually all homes have a three wire 240V service. There is a step down transformer which, depending on its size, serves between four and eight homes. The secondary of this transformer is 240V center tapped. Just prior to entering each home, the center tap feed is connected to earth ground. This is done either by driving a metal rod into the ground, or clamping to the municipal water supply. In my case I have a 200 amp service. This is governed by the main disconnect block in which there are a pair of 100 amp fuses. Down stream of this there are a number of re-settable circuit breakers which go to different parts of the home. During planning it is attempted to balance out the current load on each side of the center tap by estimating the load which breakers will likely carry. For really big appliances, such as central air conditioners, electric ovens, or electric cloths driers, they are supplied with a 240V service. When Type_Zero is talking about the two single phase legs, he’s referring to spanning both sides of the transformer excluding the center tap.

To further explain how our countries power grid works, we do the following. For really long hauls there are 300KV. interstate transmission lines which span our continent in the US. and Canada. So, how do we keep everything in phase lock? The NIST, formerly the national bureau of standards is keeper of the atomic clock. This clock is used as the standard to synthesize frequencies of 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 MHz. These are the carrier frequencies of the short wave transmitters that emanate from Bolder Colorado under the call sign WWV. If you have a short wave radio you will likely be able to receive them in Europe. They contain standard time announcements along with other useful information. In addition to this, they also transmit a signal on long wave at 60Khz. This is the signal that commercial power companies in the U.S. and Canada use to keep everything in time. During peak times these independent companies literally buy and sell power to each other by varying the voltage slightly on their systems. The supplying company raises their voltage slightly while the receiving company drops it.

So why 110V. instead of 220V. This goes back to the time of Tomas Edison and the invention of the electric light bulb. Edison began wiring New York city with electric power in order to replace lighting powered by natural gas. His system was all direct current. As the system got larger, it became obvious that a D.C distribution of electric power would not scale well over long distances. The decision was finally made to convert to alternating current. The value of 110V was chosen so as to cause an incandescent lamp to light as brightly on the A.C. as it did on D.C., and so an accepted standard of line voltage was born. Over the years this value has been slowly creeping up. First it was 110/220V. then 115/230V. Currently it’s 120/240V. And as always the frequency has been 60Hz. This works out nicely for electric clock manufacturers as 60Hz is an even multiple of Hours, minutes, and seconds.

Tommy, thanks for telling me about the 380V. service. When shopping ebay I always wondered who would want a small power transformer with a 380V. primary. Now I know it’s for the European market. For us the next step up is 3 phase 480V. This service is only available to commercial customers.

pl7I92, it’s good to hear from you again. I think I finally found the intermittent problem in my computer. At least its been stable for several days. Fearing a hard disk crash, I’ve only been using it with Linux live cd’s which is what I’m doing now. If it remains stable, I’ll get back to work cranking out YouTube videos again.

Larry, I have a buck transformer before the phase converter to get me to ~220v my incoming service sits around 240-5.

What's your YouTube channel? Would love to check it out!

Type_Zero:

Well it’s the weekend. At last I have time to catch up on more pleasurable things. Since you haven’t said any more regarding your system, I’m guessing you’re happily making chips by now.

240 to 245V. Wow, for this time of year, that is a really nice line voltage. Then again you might be living in the Rockies near the Canadian border and are avoiding all of the recent hot weather. For those of you in Europe, it’s normal for us in the central U.S. to have a few days of 100F. plus degrees. Notice I said a few. That’s not to be compared with the blast you’ve been experiencing from the Sara express. For you this too shall pass.

Regarding my YouTube channel, it’s very new. About the time I was about to crank out my second video, my system kernel began tripping down on segmentation faults. I’m now in the process of assembling video number two. The first video is a three part tutorial for making gears using FreeCAD. The name of my channel is, “BcastLar”. Do check it out and enjoy. Again I want to thank Andy Pugh for getting me some much needed publicity to get my channel off the ground. As for pl7i92, who is also part of this topic, he has a much bigger foot print on YouTube than I do. At the moment, I can’t remember the name of his channel, but compared to mine he’s gigantic. Maybe he’ll leave a comment here and give you the name if his channel.

Anyway, once you make something you really like on your new system, let us know about.