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Multimeter CAT II Rating Discontinuation

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coppice:

--- Quote from: Gyro on July 24, 2023, 06:59:20 pm ---Well, to be more honest, we switched to 230V -6% / +10% as part of European harmonization, ie. we didn't change a damn thing.  Coincidentally, our DNO switched our local substation tap to 230V just the other week - about time because we were getting 250V+ before!

--- End quote ---
We still get a minimum of 250V in our house. Is there any stated time scale for the UK actually adjusting everyone's voltage? Is 230V a even a goal any more, now the UK has left the EU?

mendip_discovery:
I thought the idea of changing the voltage was to make the sharing of electrical pixies between countries easier.

Anyway you can touch 120V and I can confirm it hurts just as much as 230V.

coppice:

--- Quote from: mendip_discovery on July 24, 2023, 09:03:57 pm ---I thought the idea of changing the voltage was to make the sharing of electrical pixies between countries easier.

--- End quote ---
That was the goal, but goals change. The main reason we didn't have harmonised voltages in the first place was the urge for countries to be different enough to support local vendors. That wasn't very successful in the long tern, so most product approvals are now to meet global requirements. That could change again, especially if the world seriously backs away from globalisation. If the UK actually stops operating at 240V, will the international product approvals requirements drop from up to 264V to up to 253V?

Nusa:

--- Quote from: coppice on July 24, 2023, 08:42:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: Gyro on July 24, 2023, 06:59:20 pm ---Well, to be more honest, we switched to 230V -6% / +10% as part of European harmonization, ie. we didn't change a damn thing.  Coincidentally, our DNO switched our local substation tap to 230V just the other week - about time because we were getting 250V+ before!

--- End quote ---
We still get a minimum of 250V in our house. Is there any stated time scale for the UK actually adjusting everyone's voltage? Is 230V a even a goal any more, now the UK has left the EU?

--- End quote ---

230V -6% / +10% never meant changing to 230V. It just meant any voltage between 216.2V and 253V is within spec. The prior UK spec was 240V +/- 6%, or 225.6V to 254.4V, which meant nearly everything was already in compliance from the get-go. Ditto for rest of the EU, at their prior nominal voltages.

Electrical infrastructure lasts a long time, so unless you're building significant areas of the grid from scratch, don't expect change to be quick.

Of course from the international trade point of view it means that appliances must be designed to operate across the entire mains voltage range in the EU market. Avoiding even the perception of incompatibility was much of the point of the "harmonized" rule.

Gyro:


--- Quote from: coppice on July 24, 2023, 08:42:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: Gyro on July 24, 2023, 06:59:20 pm ---Well, to be more honest, we switched to 230V -6% / +10% as part of European harmonization, ie. we didn't change a damn thing.  Coincidentally, our DNO switched our local substation tap to 230V just the other week - about time because we were getting 250V+ before!

--- End quote ---
We still get a minimum of 250V in our house. Is there any stated time scale for the UK actually adjusting everyone's voltage? Is 230V a even a goal any more, now the UK has left the EU?



--- End quote ---
There never was a goal as such to standardize the voltages even if we'd stayed in the EU. The whole European harmonization exercise was just a political / committee exercise. The native 230V countries had a symetrical tolerance, the 240V country (UK) had asymetrical tolerance upwards and the 220V countries, asymetrical downwards. Nobody had any intention of changing anything. Most switching stuff is 90-264V anyway, it still fits in a 400V reservoir cap.

The only inconvenience was linear stuff. At 250V, the torroidal transformer in my bench PSU would occasionally hum alarmingly and I had to to knock up an autotransformer to drop the supply to my valve amp (transformer primary wound for 230V - the supplier believed the harmonization hype ;D). I can't see anything to be gained from dropping the design limits to 254V.

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