If properly balanced / sized can a three pole breaker be utilized for multiple single phase fixtures (480V) alternating phases, this would then allow for more fixtures on that circuit because the load would be balanced across all three phases, as an ex. 15000W of lighting (in a perfect world) using 480V-1Phase would be approx. 31A where if balanced on a three phase cirucit would only be 18A allowing a smaller branch breaker to serve the fixutes. Is this type of installation be code compliant? Never ran across this before and was discussing with another individual in the office just trying to wrap my head around the load calc part.
Single Phase lighting load using Three phase Breaker Discussion
- Thread starter Mike01
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kwired
Electron manager
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- NE Nebraska
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- EC
This actually improves your voltage drop a little bit. Instead of having a x2 multiplier (1 conductor out, 1 back) you have a square root of 3 multiplier (1.732) at least for the balanced portion of the current (the current coming in on one conductor is going out on two others, but the one coming in is also part of the return for the other two, is one way to look at it without getting into vector math)
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