Electronics > Beginners
Is there a particular reason Japan is 100 volts?
jmelson:
--- Quote from: rstofer on August 30, 2018, 01:08:02 pm ---Niagara Falls used to generate 25 Hz and parts of New York City continued using it up until the early 2000s. I'm pretty sure it is gone now since the hydro plant stopped making it in 2006
--- End quote ---
This was sent a lot farther than New York. We had a converter station in St. Louis, MO that created ~60Hz from the 25 Hz Ontario Hydro power, for use in large downtown buildings. They also apparently used the 25 Hz directly for elevators, etc. This was in use into the 1980's at least. The May company (department store chain) had a data center there that was fed from THREE different substations, and the wild ground potentials caused all manner of trouble, including cables that got too hot to touch, and people getting knocked to the ground when plugging or unplugging cables.
Jon
Benta:
The real reason that Japan has 100 V is fascinating and has nothing to do with technical reasons, but in fact mirrors the electrical history of Europe and the US in the early 1900s where consumer electricity started becoming prevalent.
In those days, electricity was supplied by local utilities, who also supplied lamps and other electrical goods to consumers. Every utility had their own plugs and voltages to avoid competition. There was DC, AC, different frequencies etc.
In the US, this was relatively quickly conglomerated under a few large companies, eg, Edison, and standardization took place to a large extent.
In Europe, the same thing happened, although somewhat later in the '20...'30s, where electricity supply became a national issue. Still, foreign competition was unwanted, which resulted in every European country having their own mains plugs and often different voltages, eg, 110, 220, 240 V.
Same thing with Japan. We're talking the early years of Japanese industrialization here, and overseas competition was extremely unwelcome. By choosing 100 V, Japan was certain that no overseas lamps or bulbs would work on their grid.
Protectionist times; alas, it seems they're coming back.
schmitt trigger:
Thanks for all your replies.
Indeed, voltage selection is a little arbitrary, but most countries have somehow standardized to either of the two major standards.
But Japan, perhaps to provide a competitive advantage to its own home industry, kept the slightly odd voltage.
tkamiya:
I have an electrician's license from Japan.
Despite that, it was never mentioned why 100 volt. To me, 115 volt, 120 volt, and all that other voltage seems odd. 100 seems a good round number to me. Makes calculations easier. Also, typical single apartment feed is 20amp. Homes may be little higher like 40amp. We only have one or two circuit breakers. All heavy duty appliances are gas or kerosene. At least back when I was there in 80s, air conditioning was not common. Power consumption and transmission from technical stand point weren't a big deal to me. Besides, power feeds to poles were either 3300 or 6600 volts, depending on height of the pole. Pole pigs converted them down right near our house.
6PTsocket:
And then we sort of snuck up to 120. A lot of old stuff was 110 and then 115 or 117. In the real World in the US , today it is a few volts higher than 120 in some places
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