Getting rid of our present electrical system
- Thread starter Galt
- Start date
- Status
Who wants to?
My view is that your system is complicated by the number of different voltages. Your residences alone have two different voltages compared to Europe where it is all 230V.
But it is what it is. I think that the costs of making it a single voltage for domestic means it won't happen any time soon.
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Engineer
Sure, right after we change to the Metric system of weights and measures...
Garygood
Member
- Location
- Morton pa USA
What is the reason for bonding the natural and equipment grounds
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JFletcher
Senior Member
- Location
- Williamsburg, VA
Galt, I'm not sure I understand the question; could you elaborate?
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
I would suppose those in the Dairy industry, that blame all their milk production woes on it, do.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
Do you mean on the utility side? If so, then I think the MGN is an overall bad idea, but it's the system we have and it's not going away.
peter d
Senior Member
- Location
- New England
The market has responded with an array of products to cover our different systems. In reality, it really is only the distribution equipment and our wide variety of plugs and receptacles that is complicated. Otherwise, our wiring methods are basically the same for all voltages under 600V.
Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Gee, everything is either natural or organic now. Pretty soon those grounds will be gluten free.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
I was OT. Dang bifocals. Sorry.
mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
If you mean having the neutral and ground isolated to the utility transformer in new installations then IMO yes.
I can remember 25 to 30 years ago there were engineers and electricians advocating for the elimination of 120 volt circuits on dairy farms. Then came equal potential plane. And haven't heard much about it. Seems it is back again.I can remember talking to older electricians back then and it was pretty much agreed upon that our system was safer from both a shock and lightning standpoint.
mbrooke
Batteries Included
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Technician
Even if they eliminate all 120 volt loads, there is still the MGN (and the TELCO shields which are ultimatly bonded to the MGN at the pole) which is generally just as much of a problem.
Ideally given a practical approach, a Ronk blocker or having the POCO run a MV 3 wire delta up the the step down pole greatly mitigates the problem from the MGN.
- Location
- Bremerton, Washington
- Occupation
- Master Electrician
Please look at the grounding topic, under Grounding and Bonding Explained, its right at the top of the list
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
Dairy farms, are few and far between in this area anymore. The one larger Dairy went to extremes with no neutral load. 480v lighting in all the free stall barns and small step downs for the absolutely needed 120v. Ungrounded. Milk parlor and office area are the only older areas where 120 is used.
The other had some problems a couple years ago and when I brought missing pole grounds to the attention of the POCO, they said it would not affect the Dairy. I haven't heard of problems lately, but danged if all the missing pole grounds weren't repaired within a couple weeks.
It's similar here as far as residential cabling practice goes. It was the different voltages for appliances I was commenting on.
growler
Senior Member
- Location
- Atlanta,GA
It really doesn't complicate things much at all. Both the 120 and 240V both come from the same panel. You can use the same cable for both. The breakers are normally snap in. The voltage to ground is just 120V. so it's considered safer that 230V to ground.
Do you really think that idiots like we Americans could deal with it if it were complicated? We can't even learn to speak "English".
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Using a grounded conductor for current carrying purposes invites stray voltages to happen. Even if you did not use the grounded conductor as a circuit conductor anywhere on a premises, you still have some risk of stray voltages coming from the POCO's grounded conductor which does carry current.
More modern dairy farms are much more strict on equipotential planes and bonding of things, but still are subject to outside stray voltage at times from current carrying grounded conductors elsewhere on the same utility system.
I think we are more likely to convert to using SI (metric) units of measurement before we ever abandon grounded current carrying conductors. There is simply too many things out there designed to operate on 120 volts to just suddenly abandon those systems that have a 120 volt utilization voltage - which majority of them is not really all that feasible to ground another point in the system if you wanted to, as most are already using a "neutral" conductor as one of the 120 volt circuit conductors and grounding it results in the lowest possible potential to ground throughout the rest of the system.
Outside of control circuits, there aren't that many systems with 120 volts that aren't already a "multiwire" system.
277 volts is the next most popular utilization voltage with about the same issues.
Corner grounded delta systems present this problem as well, but they are not quite so common, and equipment that is used with them can easily be used on other systems with same phase to phase voltage but some other grounded point in the system.
More modern dairy farms are much more strict on equipotential planes and bonding of things, but still are subject to outside stray voltage at times from current carrying grounded conductors elsewhere on the same utility system.
I think we are more likely to convert to using SI (metric) units of measurement before we ever abandon grounded current carrying conductors. There is simply too many things out there designed to operate on 120 volts to just suddenly abandon those systems that have a 120 volt utilization voltage - which majority of them is not really all that feasible to ground another point in the system if you wanted to, as most are already using a "neutral" conductor as one of the 120 volt circuit conductors and grounding it results in the lowest possible potential to ground throughout the rest of the system.
Outside of control circuits, there aren't that many systems with 120 volts that aren't already a "multiwire" system.
277 volts is the next most popular utilization voltage with about the same issues.
Corner grounded delta systems present this problem as well, but they are not quite so common, and equipment that is used with them can easily be used on other systems with same phase to phase voltage but some other grounded point in the system.
Very droll.................
I didn't actually mean it is complicated. Just that having the two residential voltages complicates it somewhat compared to having just one. I suppose you could make an argument for it being twice as complicated. But I won't..........
Yes, the risk of a fatality from being electrocuted with 230V is greater than from 120V. But then you ought to consider the risk of a loose neutral puting excess volts on say, a table lamp.
I'm not suggesting that one system is better than the other. Just that one is simpler.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Very droll.................
I didn't actually mean it is complicated. Just that having the two residential voltages complicates it somewhat compared to having just one. I suppose you could make an argument for it being twice as complicated. But I won't..........
Yes, the risk of a fatality from being electrocuted with 230V is greater than from 120V. But then you ought to consider the risk of a loose neutral puting excess volts on say, a table lamp.
I'm not suggesting that one system is better than the other. Just that one is simpler.
A lot of people don't respect 120 volts. This is because they have been shocked by things supplied by a 120 circuit or at least a 120 to ground circuit, and survived, usually with little noticeable damages.
If most common voltages here were 240 or more to ground I think there would be more respect to the dangers.
277 to ground is a fairly common voltage and does get more respect to the dangers then 120 does. It is not as common at our homes and many smaller businesses though.
Can't tell you how many times I have heard "it is only 110".
Can't tell you how many times I have heard that "220 really hurts" even though most of those incidents were likely only 120 to ground incidents and they just don't realize what it was they were dealing with when they got shocked.
Also heard many stories of how getting shocked from an open neutral is the worst, thing is there is no more then 120 volts involved a lot of the time, I think it is the fact they got hit by something they didn't expect to be "live" really plays a mind game on you to some extent.
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