Europe 220VAC

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rmonroe

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I work for a German company and we have an issue with their single phase 220VAC equipment. Over in Europe they are using one hot leg (220VAC) and a neutral to supply their secondary equipment. Can we using are 220VAC (Two hot legs 110VAC) to supply the same equipment?

Thanks

rmonroe
 
Yes. The fact that one leg of the European 220 volt circuit is grounded doesn't change the amount of potential between the two conductors. If you're dealing with equipment that is frequency sensitive the 50 Hz vs. 60 Hz may be a problem.
 
Don't over look the fact that there may be controls or other equipment that require a grounded conductor and therefore need the proper 220V. I'm not sure how the piece of equipment in question works, but You better make sure that the schematic agrees with putting a 110Vac on each leg, instead of 220V to ground.

In general, I think your asking for trouble. I would first determine why your having trouble and see if you can rectify the real problem, instead of putting on a band-aid.
 
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kingpb said:
Don't over look the fact that there may be controls or other equipment that require a grounded conductor and therefore need the proper 220V. I'm not sure how the piece of equipment in question works, but You better make sure that the schematic agrees with putting a 110Vac on each leg, instead of 220V to ground.

In general, I think your asking for trouble. I would first determine why your having trouble and see if you can rectify the real problem, instead of putting on a band-aid.
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King please explain how the equipment would know if one of the conductors in a two wire circuit were grounded?
 
I grabbed a European power cord for a computer and went out to our manufacturing floor. I opened up a cabinet built by Siemens AG and found the mating receptacle. The receptacle has two metal blades which provide the ground (earth) connection to the electronic equipment, and the plug is non-polarized, meaning that it can be plugged in two ways.

If the equipment you are working with is cord-connected to a standard European receptacle when it's home in Germany, the answer is Yes, you could use American 240VAC single phase wiring. Please note that the European nominal 220V has been 230V for about as long as American 115V has been 120V. Therefore you only have an increase of 10VAC L-L on your equipment from 230V to 240V, and as long as the equipment doesn't mind 60 Hz, everything should be fine.

This answer is contingent on the statement that the device in question is cord-connected with a standard 2-pin, 3 conductor round plug with round pins and diametrically-opposed grounding contacts.

Dan
 
infinity said:
King please explain how the equipment would know if one of the conductors in a two wire circuit were grounded?
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Provide me a wiring and control schematic, and I will tell you if the machine/equipment would care, or at least if some of the components inside would care.

Frankly, making a general statment that it would be OK, without even knowing what's inside, is shall we say, a rather risky proposition.
 
Wikipedia gives a little insight into the mystery of European plugs and receptacles here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_AC_power_plugs_and_sockets

I still haven't heard back yet if this device is cord-connected, but it sounds like it is. That said, there are two possibilities in the plug design: the plug is either polarized to prevent connecting the intentionally neutral load conductor to the line, or the plug is symmetrical and allows either device load conductor to be connected to the neutral or the line.

(1). Is the device intended to be plugged in?

(2). If the answer to (1) is YES, is the supplied cord and plug CEE 7/4(German "Schuko" 16 A/250 V earthed)? "Schuko" is an abbreviation for the German word Schutzkontakt, which means "Protective (that is, earthed) contact".

(3). If the answer to (2) is no, then is the cord and plug a Type E & F Hybrid (CEE 7/7)?

If you answered YES to (1) and either (2) or (3), and you are sure of what it is you answered YES about, then you won't die from electrocution plugging your device into a 240V grounded receptacle, assuming you carry the grounding (earthing) conductor from the receptacle. This is true because the CEE 7/4 and CEE 7/7 plug systems are specifically designed to NOT be affected by interchanging the line and neutral conductors, which means the utilization equipment won't be, either.

If you answered NO to (1), send your schematic to kingpb.

If you answered NO to (2) and (3), send your schematic to kingpb.

If you don't understand these questions or the answers, send your device to kingpb.

Dan
 
It is just a standard 220 VAC supply for a piece of equipment, which has a 1PH motor with a contactor. There is and control system that would reduce the voltage down to 24VDC.
 
Many wall outlet devices today use "switching" power supplies instead of the old fashioned transformer. If you have one of these, you can usually run them 47-63Hz 85-264VAC. I've cobbled many a 200-240V instrument across two phases of a 3-phase 208V piece of machinery, and when we sold to Europe where it's 380-400V 3-phase (with the phase-neutral Voltage at 220-240V), we just changed the wiring to phase-neutral, and the colors from US black to their Blue & Brown.

You have to check under the hood first. There are some devices that don't like this.

We went from running most devices on US machine phase-phase (208V) because they had better luck passing various NRTL approval tests.

As others have noted, check under the hood first.

Matt
 
Back to my original statement. If the equipment will operate an a two wire 220 volt system with one conductor grounded than it will operate on a 220 volt system where neither of the two conductors are grounded. The only potential problem is if the European system used the grounded conductor for equipment grounding. If not, the device will operate on either system where it applied voltage is 220 volts. As stated earlier there could be a problem if the frequencies of the two systems are not the same.
 
I have installed two German-built large (13+ meter-wide, 100 kVA input) textile looms in my plant since 1999. Each of them sports a collection of control cabinets with several contactors for the servomotors and induction motors on the machines. The coil voltage on the three-phase contactors is 220VAC. Those particular coils have no problem whatsoever humming at 60 Hz instead of 50 Hz. I step down from 480VAC 3 phase to 400VAC for compatibility with the equipment in the cabinet. 220VAC coil contactors won't be a problem.

Switching supplies should have an input spec for frequency, but as Matt pointed out yesterday, just about everything built these days won't barf on anything in the 47-63 Hz range. Read the label on the power supply to determine its allowable frequency range.

rmonroe, I still don't know if this piece of equipment was cord connected or hard wired. IEC rules state that if the utilization equipment draws more than 16 amperes at 230 VAC, it must be permanently wired (that is to say, not cord and plug connected). Either way, knowing how (if at all) the equipment is grounded is of great importance.

Dan
 
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