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Brew, I'm Coal Board trained in the 60's, spent a couple of years Down Marblaegis Mine, then up north to Boulby Potash mine in 75, to me that was my second apprenticeship, learned more in almost five years there than at the NCB and BG's gypsum mine put together. Mind I learned to stand on my own two feet at Marblaegis on nights with no supervision, which helped my at Boulby, where I spent my last few years as shaft and ore handling electrician before migrating to Oz.

I'm retired now doing my thing on 80 acres of land in southern Missouri.

 

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John accepts my humour,,the last 4 years i've tried to take the Mick,,and he's completly ignored me,,bless him,,he probably thinks the same about me going on about 'customer service'          this is

I just plug it in and if it goes bang or doesn't work, I go into the garden and shout "David!" He's my next door neighbour and an electrician! 

We didn't use fuses on underground HV circuits Brew, circuit breakers, mostly vacuum interrupters or "air" type breakers charged with inert gas like Sulphur Hexafloride. All circuits had heavy sensiti

Been years since I've seen a fuse on anything above 24 volts, all houses this side of the pond have circuit breakers, and everything in my career as a mining elec was always circuit breakers.

Mind, I've worked on some very old gear at the first colliery I worked at in NSW, the transformers had slate with the contactors and breakers mounted on it. That places them to the 1920's at least.

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Ayup, the domestic setup your side is totally different to ours. As I understand it, it's all radials with breaker panels half the size of Wales, strange earthing arrangements and 2 phases plus neutral. Little to none LV distribution and virtually all overheads in rural areas. Not saying it's better or worse than ours but it must have taken a while to convert.

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Over here Brew,. I think our system goes back to the old Edison three wire system.  It is single phase from a centre tapped transformer with the neutral grounded. (Earthed). Across the two hots you have 220/240 volts.  From either line to neutral is 120 volts.  This is used for lighting and general outlets for toasters Tvs radios etc.. The two hot lines are used for stuff like stoves and dryers which have higher current requirements.  I think they think 120 volts is safer, but there have been plenty killed by it over the years.  I always treated it with respect, especially around swimming pools where I did a lot of work.  Our three phase systems were 120 / 208 and  347 / 600 in commercial industrial stuff.  As you noted all radial no ring mains.  First electrician I tried to explain a ring main to had a fit, thought it was dangerous.  Lol.  

 

I have no no experience with HV systems so would not go near 'em.  No chance now at my age.  347/600 is the highest I've worked.

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Ring mains were common in UK collieries, some engineers used to frown on them as unsafe, even more so when pits started standardizing to 6.6Kv from 3.3Kv with the advent of "heavy duty faces" with 400HPto 500HP shearers and 200HP face conveyor motors.

At Clifton we had a "partial" ring main, with the mid section isolated Lol Adcock the engineer believed they were highly dangerous. At Cotgrave, when we arrived in 68, we were warned about the ring main. One of the shift engineers told me it caught an electrician out and cost him his life as there was very little to inform him the circuit was dead after he isolated it. After that British Coal developed a visible addition to indicate the three phases were either dead or alive.

 

I adapt pretty quickly Brew, Rural areas here are the same as Australia and a good part of northern England and Scotland, all poles and pole mounted transformers at the customers residents.

the state of Victoria was an oddity, they carried a single HV line on their poles with earth return!!! Around here, the neutral is below the 7400v line for safety and the neutral is grounded at EVERY pole, that's done to provide a low impedance path for lightning strikes. Same goes for our breaker boxes, the neutral has to be bonded to the house earth system, an 8ft grounding rod. Another regulation is if you have more than one ground rod, they must all be bonded together, exception is the telephone companies ground rod. They use one to allow a path for induced hv spikes to be discharged from ground lightning strikes.

Even those haven't saved my answering machines, lost a few here during storms. All the telephone lines are buried. One storm a few years back knocked the whole telephone system out for a radius of 60 miles, we were without a phone for 48 hours.

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Dave, last place I lived in California had two phase and neutral transformer, there was a three phase line going up the hill to an old Western Union micro wave station that linked that part of Cal with other states prior to satellite communications. So our "pole pigs" were connected to two phases, LV side would be 120volts-neutral one phase and neutral-120 volts another phase, plus two phases gave us 120 volts. Here its a centre tapped transformer.

 

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Our housing subdivision is served by a transformer for about every five or six houses.  The transformers are fed underground from an overhead at the edge of the subdivision.  Primary side is 14kv.  I understand this is a ring main so that if there is a break somewhere they can feed it from either side.  The primary is three phase so I guess they rotate a phase for each transformer.

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It would be 208v if you are calculating ph to ph voltage on a 3ph TX and root 3 (1.73) comes into play.

Asynchronous TX with center tap the voltage adds, thus 120 + 120 = 240

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Standard 120-0-120 Dave, any centre tapped transformer can be used on two phases, as long as it's wound with the correct number of turns for the voltage.

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I made a mistake once trying to test a thruster brake for a conveyor in the workshops at Marblaegis mine. We hadn't got a three phase 110 volt supply, but the lighting circuit was 120v two phase supply..Hmm "worrabhat" a 240 volt capacitor to make the 3rd phase to earth?? Sure it would work, as long as it's a high enough capacitance. Bingo I found one. Friggin worked alright, tripped the main breakers out on E/L, brought the whole trunk conveyors to a standstill. Didn't click at first, thought it was just a coincidence.. Rest everything and left it at that.

 

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Glad it does to you Loppy,, thruster breaks, 240 volt capacitors,,main breakers,,3rd phase to earths,, love it ayupmiducks,,...........more please.......must have a pint sometime....we'd really Wax lyrical.......and i'd defo get pissed English style and American........think you great John  keep it coming mate.................

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John accepts my humour,,the last 4 years i've tried to take the Mick,,and he's completly ignored me,,bless him,,he probably thinks the same about me going on about 'customer service'          this is what makes the forum great,,people coming from all backgrounds and life experiences,,and sharing their life experiences,, long may it continue.............

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It's Brake Ben, it stops a moving conveyor like your car does when you press the brake pedal, only it doesn't need a human to operate it..

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It's just the way doctors, preachers, plumbers or mechanics talk Ben.  Just the language of the trade.  There are other words but they are for when you hit your thumb with a hammer.  I'm sure there are words in the grocery trade that we wouldn't know.  ;)

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I might get real technical, proximity switch, anti freeze in detection...LOL How about a sequence roller, or vacuum interrupter vacuum detector, or thyristor gate card..... Sorry Ben.

 

Bloody gas range bake igniters failed, was going to do a roast this evening for din dins, but the ovens gone tits up. Jeeze stoves were so simple years ago. Now got to wait for a replacement igniter before we can use the oven again.

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It's the only household appliance that is actually cost effective to repair, luckily I can change out parts myself, which reduces the repairs costs by 90%.

Parts listed at $95, but there are several places listing it at less than 20 bucks. No wonder Sears is going bust!! They overcharge on everything. I found parts at Sears are usually marked up as much as 300% over other companies same parts. Very rare I buy parts from them.

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I think Sears are pretty much history.  They had good stuff in the day.  Now no better than Harbour freight.  I've had good success buying the odd appliance parts from online sellers.  Just got to shop around a bit.

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Sears is just a brand name, their products are made by other companies, stove by electrolux and another company, that's why it's possible to buy parts much, much cheaper elsewhere. Yeah their tools are crap these days, they will not stand by their warranty anymore, in fact Husky state if you break a "Craftsman" brand tool, take it to Lowes etc and have them exchange it for one of their brand. Husky are the quality "Craftsman" used to be and have a no argument exchange for any tool you manage to break.

 

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When we got to our rented apt in Miami the electric stove didn't work, I phoned the janitor & he said "plug it in!" There was a weird looking multi pin plug near the stove, I thought "oh, it must be a 3 phase stove then" plugged it in & it worked perfect. Thinking back it was more likely a split phase 120/240 volts job, it had a 120 volts socket on it for the toaster. Noticed there was no electric kettle in apt...

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