Electronics > Beginners

How is Neutral Wire Neutral in Mains Electricity?

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Monkeh:

--- Quote from: IDEngineer on January 20, 2020, 10:07:46 pm ---Neutral and earth are supposed to be bonded in the panel. That's what existed in the original structure.

--- End quote ---

In the first panel. And this discussion shows precisely why nobody else does it that way..

sokoloff:
The inspector has a crystal-clear NEC reference on his side (assuming the AHJ has adopted NEC of 2008 or later, which seems likely) to require a four-wire feed. I have no issue with that.

I do think it's ridiculous that he demanded you disconnect the additional ground rods for the outbuilding and I'd have done exactly as you did in that case-reconnect them as soon as you had the sign-off and heard his car door close.

CatalinaWOW:
OK.  I'm the slow guy in the back of the class.  Why does the fourth case kill you?   It requires the place the person is standing on to have a better path back to the ground rod than any of the ground or neutral wiring, which is certainly a possibility, but not a sure thing, and maybe not even likely.  Having a local ground rod in the right hand building may make it more likely, but might not.

GeorgeOfTheJungle:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on January 21, 2020, 07:16:31 am ---OK.  I'm the slow guy in the back of the class.

--- End quote ---

No, I'm the slow one, I don't even understand those drawings.

Siwastaja:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on January 16, 2020, 07:00:42 pm ---Line (1, 2, 3), neutral, CPC. Line and neutral are live. Terminology already well under control, at least for some of us..

--- End quote ---

Thanks, this is the key. As you confirm, line and neutral are both live. It's sad that "live" is just one letter from "line", both written and pronounced. "live and neutral", a phrase which shouldn't exist at all, produces 503 000, "line and neutral" 1 210 000 results on Google, same order of magnitude.

Similar discussions happen everywhere, on- and offline, and they are always total train wrecks.

Statements like "neutral and earth are the same", as seen in this thread, as well, while technically correct to a limited degree, are extremely dangerous and easily misunderstood. This statement has a scope: N and PE are the same, inside a certain distribution box which connects them together, when the wiring is correct. But a large percentage of people reading these discussions are not electricians wiring up distribution boxes; instead, they might apply what they hear when wiring appliances.

Logical thinking based on the definitions:

Live = dangerous,
PE = not dangerous (otherwise it wouldn't be exposed everywhere!),
Neutral = Live (by definition),

Substituting Live = dangerous:
Neutral = dangerous
Substituting Neutral = PE, as suggested by many (including in this thread!)
Dangerous = not dangerous - a logical mismatch

Hence,

Claim "Neutral = PE" does not hold (as per the rating of dangerousness based on definition of being live or not, which exists for good reasons).

This is unsurprising - if neutral and PE were the same thing, why bother having the two?

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