XPost: uk.tech.broadcast, uk.tech.digital-tv, uk.rec.audio
XPost: sci.electronics.repair
From: G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk
In message , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson writes:
>Eiron wrote:
>>
>> Can I just mention another example of European Union lunacy?
>> Voltage is standardized at 230v +- a fudge factor so that the UK
>> can keep to 240v and the rest of Europe can keep 220v with no plans
>> for any country to adopt 230v. Now that is dumb!
>
>No, it makes perfect sense. A long time ago England was 240 volts and
>continental Europe was 220 volts, both 50Hz. I don't know when this
>was standrdized up until WWII France used 120 volt 60Hz AC.
(Are you sure? I thought their TV standards - even the early ones - were
50Hz-related, which would not be a good idea if they really had 60Hz
mains.)
>
>The UK used several systems, and a friend of mine who traveled to London
>in the 1970's found that there were four different electrical systems in use
>in various parts of the city. By that time they had been standardized to
>240 volts 50Hz, but the older plugs and lightbulbs (different ones for
>different systems) remained.
Your friend sounds confused. The 240/50 was standardised a long time
before 1970, and the various plugs and bulbs had been running on 240/50
for some decades by then.
There _had_ been assorted sized plugs with three (round) pins, but the
different sizes were purely for current (2A - rare, mainly in shop
windows - for lighting, and 5, 10, and 15A for other appliances), they
all ran on 240/50.
As for bulbs, the four main types - large and small bayonet, and large
and small Edison screw - had all been on 240/50 since well before 1970.
Large bayonet was almost universal anyway; large Edison screw being the
norm in most of western Europe. The bayonet fitting - especially with
Bakelite and even most later thermosetting plastics - tends to become
brittle and bits break off with the continuous heat produced by a
lightbulb; nevertheless, it is still the overwhelmingly commonest
fitting.
>
>Appliances were sold without plugs well into the 1990s.
>
>Still, you had to buy an appliance for 220 volts or 240 volts. Devices used
>in both places had a switch on the back.
Or a tapping you moved (on a transformer, or dropper resistor, though
those were declining).
>
>The new EU standard of 230 volts is not one of exactly 230 volts, like the
>old 220 or 240 ones were, it's a requirment that an electrical device sold in
>the EU can operate without adjustment from 220-240 volts (more like 210-250)
>
>There were plans of slowly shifting everyone in the EU to 230 volts so there
>could be a shared electical grid, but with the economic problems currently
>hapening, it would be too much to predict the lights will stay on at all.
>:-)
>
>Geoff.
>
Indeed. Britain is somewhat different there anyway - the trans-channel
interconnectors are actually at DC (and I believe longer cables, such as
those to Scandinavia if there are any, are too); there are rectification
plants, I think one being in or near Hawkinge. (Not sure how they
convert it back to AC.) [I've also been told that, despite the public
being told it is bidirectional because peak demand occurs at different
times as we take our main meals at different times, in practice it has
never operated in the supply-power-from-Britain-to-France direction,
other than for test purposes. Whether this is true I don't know.]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to a garage
makes you a car." - Laurence J. Peter
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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