On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:02:11 -0600, Dean Hoffman
wrote:

David Nebenzahl wrote:
On 1/12/2011 5:16 PM Dean Hoffman spake thus:

Frank wrote:

http://home.howstuffworks.com/question117.htm

That article might drive the EEs here a little batty.
AC doesn't actually flow. The electrons jiggle.
I checked a few pages down and found another obvious error.
There is another mistake he http://tinyurl.com/4dv2hch
just above the watt hour meter.

What, the step-down transformer? What's wrong with that?

The explanation just above it. The center tapped secondary of a
single phase transformer has two phases all of sudden.
(I'm growing up to be a picky old fart.)

It is considered single phase. If you remove the center tap, you have
the same thing on the primary as you do on the secondary.

If you chose to put the secondary tap anywhere but the center, you
still have 240 total, but the fraction of 240 changes as you move the
center tap.