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DanaK

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Waller

On Fri, 06 May 2005 19:49:51 GMT, (Doug Miller) wrote:

In article et, "Ralph Mowery" wrote:

"toller" wrote in message
...
No such thing as 220v or 230v, only 240v; which some people insist on
calling almost anything. However, you are thinking of 208v, which is two
legs of three phase; but since you don't have 3 phase, it really doesn't
matter.

What voltage is 208 using two out of three legs of ? It is usually a 208
three phase system. YOu take two legs off that and get the nominal 110
volts.

Wrong. 208V 3ph is 208V phase-to-phase and 120V phase-to-neutral.

Except for Philadelphia Electric. I personally worked with a 240 3 phase
service that provide nominal 120v to ground (neutral) on two legs and 208v to
ground (neutral) on one leg. That leg was refereed to as the "high leg". I
personally blew up some fluorescent lighting because I failed to check which
leg I was using.

I have been told that the PECO scenario is a bit unusual.

____________________
Bill Waller
New Eagle, PA

Wow, quite a few people have posted to this thread all of a sudden. It is interesting to read through them.

After checking the line to make sure the previous owner didn't use more than one wire between the breaker box and the wall plug, which he'd been known to do as old ranchers NEVER throw anything away, and consulting with a few friends that are electricians, I've pretty much determined that what happened was that one of the pair of 20 amp breakers that this A/C unit was on has probably burned out internally. It's been over a week and a half since I've had time to look at this but I plan to replace them with a pair of 30 amp breakers like the other pair that are in the box for the water heater.

The voltage I get between the legs in this breaker box is 243vac. One of the friends I consulted with said this was sufficient for the application. Oh, and it IS all one wire between the breakers and the plug. My friend did reccomend soldering the crimped ends onto the wire to make a better connection, too. After that wrap the plug several times in electrical tape which is what I usually do when installing or otherwise working on wall plugs and switches.

I had to smile at one of the previous posts that replied to my description of the house as being a "ranch house". Yew havta unnerstan tha whut these ol ranchers dew on their "places" aint kwite az civilized as yew peeple thut werk in the citiz'r used to. The closer you get to thinking Looney Tunes and Rube Goldberg the closer you'll get to what's been going on in these houses built any time from the 'teens to the 1950's. "Code" doesn't enter into the designer's mindset. I spent ten years working in a hospital here in our city and I do know what looks good and works right, in general, but I don't work on anything over regular 120v house voltage unless I absolutely have to. That's why I'm asking the questions here to see if I can pick something up. A certified person would throw their hands up and run out of the house screaming if they saw some of the things I've seen done. That's why this old guy and I had less and less to talk about as time went on.

Anyway, I do appreciate the posts and will take with me all the warnings and admonitions found here.

Thanks.