I was wondering if someone could clear up something for me. On a multiwire branch circuit in this case just two ungrounded conductors and a grounded conductor, when current flows through the neural wire it is my understanding that the current is called unbalanced current,when there is no current through the neutral wire then the circuit is balanced. my question is when one is talking about balanced and unbalanced current does this refer to one line having a load and the other line having a differnet sized load which I guess means unbalanced, and if both lines have equal loads then it's balanced. I just want to make sure I have this straight in my head. Thanks everyone for your responce and help.
multiwire circuit
- Thread starter rudy.v
- Start date
- Status
Ed MacLaren
Senior Member
Re: multiwire circuit
Here are sketches of two 3-wire circuits, each supplying a load of 160 amps at 120 volts. (These numbers were just chosed for easy math.)
In A the load is balanced, and in B it is unbalanced.
The line voltage drop is a bit exaggerated in these examples, but you can see why it is better to balance the load as well as possible.
Ed
[ April 16, 2003, 11:58 PM: Message edited by: Ed MacLaren ]
Here are sketches of two 3-wire circuits, each supplying a load of 160 amps at 120 volts. (These numbers were just chosed for easy math.)
In A the load is balanced, and in B it is unbalanced.
The line voltage drop is a bit exaggerated in these examples, but you can see why it is better to balance the load as well as possible.
Ed
[ April 16, 2003, 11:58 PM: Message edited by: Ed MacLaren ]
physis
Senior Member
Re: multiwire circuit
Is it really important to be concerned with weather or not a multiwire branch cicuit is balanced? There are two extreme conditions:
[1] No current is drawn on one of the ungrounded conductors. The result is that it acts exactly like a two wire branch cicuit.
[2] Maximum current is drawn on both ungrounded conductors. In this case the neutral gets a rest.
Aside from distributing loads on either side of the service what should the branch ciruits care?
Is it really important to be concerned with weather or not a multiwire branch cicuit is balanced? There are two extreme conditions:
[1] No current is drawn on one of the ungrounded conductors. The result is that it acts exactly like a two wire branch cicuit.
[2] Maximum current is drawn on both ungrounded conductors. In this case the neutral gets a rest.
Aside from distributing loads on either side of the service what should the branch ciruits care?
- Status