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How is Neutral Wire Neutral in Mains Electricity?

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floobydust:
In Canada and the USA, the distribution transformer center-tap is neutral and earth-grounded. So we have two: Line 1, Line 2. One more wire than 220VAC-only systems.
UK electrical seems quite different from North America. But the same result - Neutral and PE are bonded together. Just done in different locations, and in multiple places.

"consumer's union" we call "main breaker panel, or service panel".
"supply authority" we call "utility company"

We don't allow combustibles i.e. fiber-board wood back panel  :o or a fiberglass enclosure, which I see in UK where the utility meter is located.






GeorgeOfTheJungle:

--- Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2020, 08:56:49 pm ---I think the little white earth wire is the earth sense for the RCD.

--- End quote ---

Is that a voltage-operated RCD? If it has more than 4 wires coming in/out it surely is. That's obsolete tech. And does it say 100 mA? That's a lot! Normal ones trip at 30 mA.


--- Quote from: Monkeh on January 16, 2020, 09:01:07 pm ---All seems very wrong. The RCD should not require an earth at all

--- End quote ---

Exactly!

Monkeh:

--- Quote from: floobydust on January 16, 2020, 09:08:05 pm ---We don't allow combustibles i.e. fiber-board wood back panel  :o or a fiberglass enclosure, which I see in UK where the utility meter is located.

--- End quote ---

The wooden backboards are treated and require an immense amount of energy to combust (note: paulca's installation is not on such a treated board which makes me more suspicious). Frankly no worse than a metal box mounted on an otherwise wooden structure - you dump enough energy in, eventually it's going to burn. But we tend to have masonry construction, so even if a fire gets started in a meter cabinet it's not likely to do much. The cavity insulation might eventually burn depending on type..

There's been a huge move recently to metal clad enclosures for everything (.. on the consumer side..) due to a spate of fires. All of which were due to poorly trained (or untrained) monkeys who can't tighten terminals, who were going around replacing CUs under the false pretense that a change in regulations required everyone to switch to dual RCD boards. These same twats are now changing everyone to metal clad boards (same false pretense), which are still going to catch fire because they still don't tighten terminals, and nothing is actually better..

stefan_trekkie:
You can get some low voltage on some point in the natural wire because the wire itself have some resistance and therefor - voltage drop. On heavy home load and poor grounding may have to 4-5 volts.
The natural wire is not power caring. It is the wire that is bridge between phases. You have three phase from your local power transformer and one phase is in one house (or one apartment) and the other is in the second house(apartment) and they 'must' have balance with equal loads on every phase. If you have equal loads in tree phase power cable the natural wire have ZERO current .. But in imperfect world you have always slight disbalance

floobydust:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on January 16, 2020, 09:13:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: floobydust on January 16, 2020, 09:08:05 pm ---We don't allow combustibles i.e. fiber-board wood back panel  :o or a fiberglass enclosure, which I see in UK where the utility meter is located.

--- End quote ---

The wooden backboards are treated and require an immense amount of energy to combust (note: paulca's installation is not on such a treated board which makes me more suspicious). Frankly no worse than a metal box mounted on an otherwise wooden structure - you dump enough energy in, eventually it's going to burn. But we tend to have masonry construction, so even if a fire gets started in a meter cabinet it's not likely to do much. The cavity insulation might eventually burn depending on type..

There's been a huge move recently to metal clad enclosures for everything (.. on the consumer side..) due to a spate of fires. All of which were due to poorly trained (or untrained) monkeys who can't tighten terminals, who were going around replacing CUs under the false pretense that a change in regulations required everyone to switch to dual RCD boards. These same twats are now changing everyone to metal clad boards (same false pretense), which are still going to catch fire because they still don't tighten terminals, and nothing is actually better..

--- End quote ---

TBH in North America we require a metal enclosure for the "service entrance" and main breaker panel.
However, the service entrance, all that's in it is a socket and energy smart meter, and no fuse which I see as a requirement in the UK  :-+

There have been countless house fires with improperly designed and tested (to Overvoltage Category IV+) energy smart meter arcs and then you have an unlimited arc happening on the side of a house. Firefighters won't pour water on it. The only fuse is on the distribution transformer primary which doesn't pop because it's sized for 20+ houses. Videos show a wood home go down, many class action suits and recalls of smart meters until the safety standards caught up.
Point is, the utility meter metal box does nothing for fire protection, really.

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