There certainly are standards. :) However, there are also those who believe
that hooking up an outlet is "cake" that have no idea what standards are.
So, unless you wired the outlet yourself, it could be wrong. I cannot speak
to overseas standards, so all you guys outside of the US please " pay no
attention to the man behind the curtain."
Over many years of gigging I found one of the most common wiring errors is
the reversed neutral and hot connection on 120 Volt AC outlets. While you
will find debate over ground up or ground down (let's not start a new one),
the shorter "slot" of the two current carrying connections is always
supposed to be hot. I always traveled with one of those $ 4 LED outlet
checkers, just because it was quick and safe for anyone to use.
When you get to the colors (in the US again) black is hot, white neutral,
and green ground. Although I see a lot of AC cables out there with brown,
blue and something else. I used to know what that was too.
Be careful and never assume the outlet is right until you prove it.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: <elhardt@...>
To: <motm@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2003 9:57 PM
Subject: [motm] AC Power, are there no standards?
I am hooking up a Power One supply and I plugged a three prong AC cable into
the wall to measure what connector was hot and what was neutral. Just to
double
check, a short while later I plugged in another three prong AC cable to
refresh
my memory only to find hot and neutral swapped. I tried about 10 other three
prong cables and it looks like I have just one where hot and neutral are
swapped. I realize that perhaps this might not be overly important, but I've
been assuming that the hot single would be fused. Are there no standards
here
at all?
-Elhardt
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