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Geoffrey S. Mendelson Geoffrey S. Mendelson is offline
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Default Audio Precision System One Dual Domani Measuirement Systems

Eiron wrote:

Can I just mention another example of European Union lunacy?
Voltage is standardized at 230v +- a fudge factor so that the UK
can keep to 240v and the rest of Europe can keep 220v with no plans
for any country to adopt 230v. Now that is dumb!


No, it makes perfect sense. A long time ago England was 240 volts and
continental Europe was 220 volts, both 50Hz. I don't know when this
was standrdized up until WWII France used 120 volt 60Hz AC.

The UK used several systems, and a friend of mine who traveled to London
in the 1970's found that there were four different electrical systems in use
in various parts of the city. By that time they had been standardized to
240 volts 50Hz, but the older plugs and lightbulbs (different ones for
different systems) remained.

Appliances were sold without plugs well into the 1990s.

Still, you had to buy an appliance for 220 volts or 240 volts. Devices used
in both places had a switch on the back.

The new EU standard of 230 volts is not one of exactly 230 volts, like the
old 220 or 240 ones were, it's a requirment that an electrical device sold in
the EU can operate without adjustment from 220-240 volts (more like 210-250)

There were plans of slowly shifting everyone in the EU to 230 volts so there
could be a shared electical grid, but with the economic problems currently
hapening, it would be too much to predict the lights will stay on at all.
:-)

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-(