Does 220V Rated equipment Function on 3 Phase system

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designer82

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Boston
The facility I'm working on will have 3 phase 120/208V power.

A lot of the equipment I'm seeing says 220V single phase.

So I'm wondering if this equipment will work at 208V

thanks
 
Unfortunately you need to look at each piece of equipment individually and often have to consult the manufacturer.
A great deal of equipment will operate on either voltage (208 or 240)
 
Do you mean 230 volts, instead of 220 volts? I'm going by memory here, but I believe the various voltages are:

Utility Voltages
208/120V (the higher voltage is supposed to be first on 3 phase systems).
120/240V (lower voltage first for 1 phase).

But motor and equipment voltages are usually specified a little lower to allow some voltage drop on the feeder and branch circuits. (With motors, a lower voltage often means a higher current, so using a lower voltage is actually being conservative.)
200V for a 208V utility voltage
230V for a 240V utility voltage.
460V for a 480V utility.

Then there are the older, slightly lower voltages that were used by utilities decades ago. These were slowly raised to get our present voltages (the higher voltages are more efficient). But you may still hear some people refer to these older numbers. To me its really confusing to use these numbers, and I usually hear them from people who don't know what they are talking about (the same people that usually say "Its probably a short" anytime something doesn't work):

110V, 220V, and 440V.

Since the voltages were raised slowly over many years (both the utility voltages and the appliance voltages), you may even hear some in between numbers like 115 or 117V.

So back to your question: a motor that would work on both 240V and 208V would be slash rated as 200/230 volts.
 
SOME things will work, some will not. You cannot make any assumptions.

SOME 230V induction motors are designed to be OK at 208V, some are not. Those that are not may burn themselves out or fail to perform by causing nuisance tripping of protective devices.

Appliances and power tools that use Universal Motors will not get to full speed but will not be otherwise harmed.

Things that are using electricity only for resistive heating elements are usually fine other than producing less heat, so will take longer to heat things up or to dry clothes etc.

SOME things that have electronic power supplies may be OK if they have “auto-ranging” inputs, some may just not turn on, and some may actually burn out.
 
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