XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: kludge@panix.com   
      
   Thomas Koenig   wrote:   
   >But I read upthread about 220 V (or 240 V) in the US being supplied   
   >by having two opposite phases.  How is that generated from three   
   >phases?  Sound weird.   
      
   Center-tapped transformer.  You have your 24KV mains in three-phase   
   but you take one phase put it into a 24KV:240VCT with the center tap   
   as your neutral and now you have two opposing hot legs off of one phase.   
   (This is why it's called single phase power and not two-phase power,   
   because both legs come off the same phase of the distribution network.)   
      
   There are way more complicated tricks possible with transformers.  There   
   is actually still 2-phase power in the US, with two phases shifted by   
   90 degrees.  It may still exist in Sweden too, or it did when I was a   
   kid.  This is created from a three-phase source using the "Scott-T"   
   transformer arrangement which is truly mindbending.  As far as I know this   
   only still exists in Philadelphia here.   
   --scott   
      
   --   
   "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)