House wiring? (slightly off-topic)

[Dave Krooshof]

>Humm... how is power distributed to households in the USA? In Sweden I
>think almost all are given a 400 V three-phase with ground wire. The
>zero and protective ground is wired together to the ground wire in the
>meter/distribution central of the household. It would be interesting
>to get somewhat enligthend on how the American setup looks.
I'd appreciate that as well.
In the Netherlands we had 2 different ways of getting 220.
one is from a 3 phased system, where 220 lives between two wires.
The otherone is from a 3 phased 110 volts system, that was used in
Amsterdam in particular. Amsterdam had it's electricity earlier so that
meant they where somewhat behind when 220 becam standard

>BTW, as you migth know Europe is (supposed to be) normalized around
>230V by now.
Well, it isn't as normal. In The Hague, where I live, it's 225 to  230, and
my equipment survives, though I do not dare switching my old tube stuff on
anymore.
In Amsterdam, where I work, I have fried my phones loader, my MD NiMH
batteries in the loader, as their network is 236 at least and 242 at times.

Also, we've burned our Swoboda (spelling?) theatre light more then once, as
those are 9 24volt lamps in series. The odd thing is: just before a lamp
dies, it's resistance gets very low, I guess, and bang goes 500$, for if
one goes, they all go.
Any ideas how to protect this?


Or is this the 'you can burn a lamp by lowering the voltage' theory in
practice?
How come dimmers don't burn the lamps on their way out?
Apart for some temperature effect which will be: less ohms while cold, I'd
expect a lamp to behave like a normal resitor.
So, Ohm's lwa says: U=I*R.
Keeping R constant means lowering U (volts) lowers I (amperes).

If the ycbalbltv-theory were true, U*I would be constant.
Consider the 100W lamp, U=200 volts (and life=easy)
U=I*R, U*I=100, I=0.5, 200=0.5*R, R=400 Ohm
Consider 100 volts, and the ycbalbltv-theory=true, meaning U*I is constant.
U*I=100, I=1 U=I*R, 100=1*100. This means a lamp's resitance is a
logaritmic of the current. This would mean that preheating lamps would mean
'nearly short circuiting'.
It would also mean that two lamps in series would get hotter. This also is
not true, they produce less light and less heat. So if they were still
'drawing' 100Watts, where is all that energy going? Also I measured cold
lamps with a simple ohm-meter @ 1.5 volt. It said: 300Ohms. And my battery
did not get fried.
The ycbalbltv-theory is out.

I think the whole misassumption lays in:
>it must *draw* more current (generate more heat) at a lower voltage.
Nothing *draws* current, nor power, nor amperes.
All lamps and synths *get pushed*.
The question is how much they resist the pushing.
You pay your electric bill according to how weak your stuff was in resisting.
Lamps that give a lot of lights are weak resistors, resiting so little that
they glow due to the fact they let so much fast electrons pass through. If
you lower the voltage by switching a second lamp in series, you share the
*pushing*, half for each lamp. And as none of the lamps actually pull or
*draw*, they cool off and are happy with that.

Speaking about theatre light, I'm asked to take a look at the Theatre
School's dimmers. Does anyone know of a website discussing those? ADB in
particular?

>This two-phase system that you got, where is the transition between
>three-phase (distribution network) and two-phase occur?
It normally is in the connection of your house to the city's network, being
either near your frontdor in your house, or just a bit down the street.
Generally it's not customerservicable, yet you may be the only one to
notice if this is the problem.

--ok, back to synths--
I've made a dedicated bass synth 'tuba', see http://www.xs4all.nl/~krooshof
The only problem is, since I built it out of several DIY and prefab units,
that I need a lot of different voltages to go into the box. And man, it's
become a heavy thing to carry around.
So does anyone here have a schemetic to build a powersupply that'll give me
9, 12, 18, and 24 volts? I might need to do the 12 volts apart form the
rest anyway, as that circuitry contains over a dozen relais that will spike
about while in operation, unless it's neatly cancelled out.

>Re: OT: Adolf Stalin etc etc. Woohoo
xmas time was a good time to join!
Never thought solderingirons were used to flame!
(oops, did I just make enemies?)

OK.
If I may introduce myself, here are some links:
My site: http://www.xs4all.nl/~krooshof
Where I work as a sound/elctronictech:
http://www.ahk.nl/the/theatertechniek_ov.html
webmaster: http://www.popronde.nl

I ended up here through a link to Rick's page.
Note my page on "an Electric Tuba" on my site to hear and see what I do in
my sparetime.


Dave



Dave


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And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles,
and all thy borders of pleasant stones. (Isaiah 54:12)