3 ms·

The typical house has 240 volt service in the US (two legs of 120v). I would also say a decent number of homes have 200amp as well

samatman 4y ago
This is true, but I'm fairly certain that the amps of available power are calculated on a 120v basis, a 10 actual-amp washing machine would use 20 accounting amps at maximum power.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  The rating of a service (and by extension, the main breaker) is available at 240V. It's true that if all of your 200A load is consumed on a single leg, with zero amps consumed on the opposing leg, that you would only be able to consume 200A * 120V nominal or 24kW, but if the load is balanced, you can pull 200A @ 240V nominal or 48kW.
csdvrx 4y ago
> The typical house has 240 volt service in the US (two legs of 120v). Can we wire that in a way to would allow installing .uk or .de Schuko Type-F plugs? It would be funny (and weird!) to have 220V available on a european socket for say a desktop equipped with a 1.5kW PSU for the upcoming Nvidia 4090 :)
- trelane 4y ago
  There may be ordinances requiring a specific plug type, and I'm pretty sure the NEC has opinions on outlets. :) That said, it's your house, so you may be able to do that in some places. I've thought about it myself, so I can get a euro tea kettle. That said, the power will still be at 60Hz not 50, which will matter for some uses (e.g. impedances will change).
- AnotherGoodName 4y ago
  You probably have a few such sockets around. Not the UK or eu form factor but 240v at least. Look at how your dryer or AC plugs into the wall and you'll see something different to the usual plugs.
  - trelane 4y ago
    These are all standardized and have meaning. https://www.electronicshub.org/electrical-outlet-types/ https://www.electronicshub.org/electrical-outlet-types/ There are definitely 240V for higher power usage (because they will need half the current for the same power with double voltage, and current (current density, technically) is what causes joule heating and melts wires/ starts fires. The sockets will be incompatible with Euro or UK sockets. You could change the socket to a euro socket, bit the frequencies will be wrong for euro or uk devices (60Hz in the us, 50 in europe & UK.) This may or may not be important depending on what you're hooking up to it (understand that impedance and other electrical things are a function of frequency). The safest option would be to get something to convert the power (there seen to be products to do that) and put _that_ behind the Euro or UK outlets.
- jeramey 4y ago
  You’d probably need to do this with an AC-DC-AC transformer to also get the circuit converted to the 50hz cycle European power systems use, but it’d just be a waste because of the power losses involved (not to mention the expense of the transformers). Also, a typical 15A circuit in a home will handle ~1.8kw of sustained load, so as long as you can dedicate a circuit to such a rig, you’d be fine.
  - garaetjjte 4y ago
    Computer power supplies won't care about 50/60Hz difference (maybe except some slight efficiency change).
  - ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
    Computer power supplies don't give a shit about frequency. They will happily accept 120/50 or 240/60.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Maybe motors because you can replace the neutral (in eu) with a hot (us) and it's basically doing the same thing.
yourapostasy 4y ago
A surprising (but still tiny) number of US houses also can have three-phase brought out to them by the electric utility. Some utilities will charge you upfront for stringing it up and lighting up the wires, but another surprising number of utilities will just amortize it from the monthly cost of service. It's still rare enough you have to ask ahead of time if you want it for any building you get into, but in some major metro areas it has gone from "you have got to be joking" to "sure, let me check on that". Now if only I can find a reliable, durable three-phase solar inverter...
- themitigating 4y ago
  3 phase gets you 108v on each hot leg. Many items will specify 110v/120v . 108v is close enough

samatman 4y ago

This is true, but I'm fairly certain that the amps of available power are calculated on a 120v basis, a 10 actual-amp washing machine would use 20 accounting amps at maximum power.

sokoloff 4y ago
The rating of a service (and by extension, the main breaker) is available at 240V. It's true that if all of your 200A load is consumed on a single leg, with zero amps consumed on the opposing leg, that you would only be able to consume 200A * 120V nominal or 24kW, but if the load is balanced, you can pull 200A @ 240V nominal or 48kW.

csdvrx 4y ago

> The typical house has 240 volt service in the US (two legs of 120v). Can we wire that in a way to would allow installing .uk or .de Schuko Type-F plugs? It would be funny (and weird!) to have 220V available on a european socket for say a desktop equipped with a 1.5kW PSU for the upcoming Nvidia 4090 :)

trelane 4y ago
There may be ordinances requiring a specific plug type, and I'm pretty sure the NEC has opinions on outlets. :) That said, it's your house, so you may be able to do that in some places. I've thought about it myself, so I can get a euro tea kettle. That said, the power will still be at 60Hz not 50, which will matter for some uses (e.g. impedances will change).
AnotherGoodName 4y ago
You probably have a few such sockets around. Not the UK or eu form factor but 240v at least. Look at how your dryer or AC plugs into the wall and you'll see something different to the usual plugs.
- trelane 4y ago
  These are all standardized and have meaning. https://www.electronicshub.org/electrical-outlet-types/ https://www.electronicshub.org/electrical-outlet-types/ There are definitely 240V for higher power usage (because they will need half the current for the same power with double voltage, and current (current density, technically) is what causes joule heating and melts wires/ starts fires. The sockets will be incompatible with Euro or UK sockets. You could change the socket to a euro socket, bit the frequencies will be wrong for euro or uk devices (60Hz in the us, 50 in europe & UK.) This may or may not be important depending on what you're hooking up to it (understand that impedance and other electrical things are a function of frequency). The safest option would be to get something to convert the power (there seen to be products to do that) and put _that_ behind the Euro or UK outlets.
jeramey 4y ago
You’d probably need to do this with an AC-DC-AC transformer to also get the circuit converted to the 50hz cycle European power systems use, but it’d just be a waste because of the power losses involved (not to mention the expense of the transformers). Also, a typical 15A circuit in a home will handle ~1.8kw of sustained load, so as long as you can dedicate a circuit to such a rig, you’d be fine.
- garaetjjte 4y ago
  Computer power supplies won't care about 50/60Hz difference (maybe except some slight efficiency change).
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  Computer power supplies don't give a shit about frequency. They will happily accept 120/50 or 240/60.
themitigating 4y ago
Maybe motors because you can replace the neutral (in eu) with a hot (us) and it's basically doing the same thing.

yourapostasy 4y ago

A surprising (but still tiny) number of US houses also can have three-phase brought out to them by the electric utility. Some utilities will charge you upfront for stringing it up and lighting up the wires, but another surprising number of utilities will just amortize it from the monthly cost of service. It's still rare enough you have to ask ahead of time if you want it for any building you get into, but in some major metro areas it has gone from "you have got to be joking" to "sure, let me check on that". Now if only I can find a reliable, durable three-phase solar inverter...

themitigating 4y ago
3 phase gets you 108v on each hot leg. Many items will specify 110v/120v . 108v is close enough