Hi,

I've moved to N America from Europe and I'm changing some power connector.
My Question now is, when I look from the front on the connector, Ground on
the bottom, is the phase on the left or on the right? I unfortunately don't
have a phase tester handy.

Thanks,
Ron
--
chEErs roN

Ron Eggler wrote:

Hi,

I've moved to N America from Europe and I'm changing some power connector.
My Question now is, when I look from the front on the connector, Ground on
the bottom, is the phase on the left or on the right? I unfortunately don't
have a phase tester handy.


Shaw indicates that you are in Canada. The US AC outlets are color
coded for 120 VAC:

Ground is green screw, with a Green or bare wire.

Neutral is a silver screw and White wire. Neutral is also the wider
blade on the two wire plugs

Line is a brass screw with black, or any other color wire except Green
or White.

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see, unless the house is wired with conduit and pulled
wire. A Home Depot, Lowe's, or similar home improvement store will have
a book on residential wiring at a reasonable price.


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I spent some time in Sweden, where it is 220 single phase 50 HZ. In the US,
it is 120V 60 HZ single phase. there is a hot a neutral and ground (earth).
You can wire up "stuff" for 220, which is still single phase (is you go
across both sides and not reference ground). Some co-workers Sweden used the
electric dryer socket to get the power they needed for some of their
"stuff". Most electronics use switching supplies, so they will work from 100
to 250 VAC.
As for the outlet, the at it, there are 3 holes the one on the left is
neutral (the return) which is a bigger blade so it can't be plugged into the
hot lead. the hot is on the right, and ground (earth) is the round one on
the bottom.
On 220 outlets, they look like this
__ __

O the 2 at the top are 220, the bottom is earth
Good Luck
Frank



"Ron Eggler" wrote in message
news:kDKOj.76529$rd2.48980@pd7urf3no...
Hi,

I've moved to N America from Europe and I'm changing some power connector.
My Question now is, when I look from the front on the connector, Ground on
the bottom, is the phase on the left or on the right? I unfortunately
don't
have a phase tester handy.

Thanks,
Ron
--
chEErs roN

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many decades (now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

Graham

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:02:41 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many decades (now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

In the U.S., 110VAC service, 'live' is black, and neutral is white.
Go figure.

It's always been my cynical view that this 'plan' was put in place by a
consortium of electricians to kill off do-it-yourselfers that would
assume the color coding would be rational and logical.

Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
*** Killfiling google posts: http://jonz.net/ng.htm

In message , Allodoxaphobia
writes
On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:02:41 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many
decades (now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

In the U.S., 110VAC service, 'live' is black, and neutral is white.
Go figure.

It's always been my cynical view that this 'plan' was put in place by a
consortium of electricians to kill off do-it-yourselfers that would
assume the color coding would be rational and logical.

Jonesy

For an Englishman, the US colo(u)r code is easy to remember.
Think 'Black Death' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death).
We used to have green for earth (ground) - but, for a long time, now
green and yellow. Close enough. Think 'England's green and pleasant
land' - 'land' = ground. The only problem is white - a sort-of 'neutral'
colo(u)r, I suppose.
--
Ian

In article ,
Allodoxaphobia wrote:
In the U.S., 110VAC service, 'live' is black, and neutral is white.
Go figure.

It's always been my cynical view that this 'plan' was put in place by a
consortium of electricians to kill off do-it-yourselfers that would
assume the color coding would be rational and logical.


Trouble is a colour which is logical to one ain't to another. Ground
(earth) is usually a shade of brown - but not with electrics.

Think the unified Euro colours - green/yellow for ground, blue neutral
and brown line was arrived at to allow a colour blind person to
differentiate between them rather than any other logic.

It's one thing I'd be in favour of having a world wide standard for - and
also car wiring colours.

--
*Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh nervously and change the subject

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many decades
(now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

Graham


Black is live, red is also used as live, most often in a 240V circuit where
you have live on both sides. White is neutral which connects to ground in
the panel.

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:22:29 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
In message Allodoxaphobia writes:
On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:02:41 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many
decades (now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

In the U.S., 110VAC service, 'live' is black, and neutral is white.
Go figure.

It's always been my cynical view that this 'plan' was put in place by a
consortium of electricians to kill off do-it-yourselfers that would
assume the color coding would be rational and logical.

For an Englishman, the US colo(u)r code is easy to remember.
Think 'Black Death' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death).
We used to have green for earth (ground) - but, for a long time, now
green and yellow. Close enough. Think 'England's green and pleasant
land' - 'land' = ground. The only problem is white - a sort-of 'neutral'
colo(u)r, I suppose.

Just don't get "Black = dark, cold; White = white hot" burned into your
brain. :-)

Jonesy

James Sweet wrote:

"Eeyore" wrote
"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many decades
(now brown in conformity with other European countries).


Black is live, red is also used as live, most often in a 240V circuit where
you have live on both sides.

Right. Thanks for the explanation.


White is neutral which connects to ground in the panel.

Yes, familiar with that one.

Graham

Allodoxaphobia wrote:

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:02:41 +0100, Eeyore wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

In residential wiring Romex is very common so Black or red is all you
are likely to see

Which is line/live ? In the UK red was the live conductor for many decades (now
brown in conformity with other European countries).

In the U.S., 110VAC service, 'live' is black, and neutral is white.
Go figure.

It's always been my cynical view that this 'plan' was put in place by a
consortium of electricians to kill off do-it-yourselfers that would
assume the color coding would be rational and logical.


Actually, it's quite logical. The first wire available for
electrical work was cloth and tar covered which made all of it black.
Since everything was the same color every wire was considered 'hot'.

When colored plastic insulation was developed, White (which is the
opposite of black), was used to show that line was connected to an
unswitched neutral.

When the third wire was added for a safety ground, it was green,
because we have green grass on the ground in the US.


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http://improve-usenet.org/index.html


Use any search engine other than Google till they stop polluting USENET
with porn and junk commercial SPAM

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in
your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm