Ok CANADA, EXPLAIN this

[A.K. Boomer]

True, but then that would make higher voltages proportionally evan more dangerous.

Phil

So now Evan is dangerous?

Higher voltages makes it easier to overcome insulation properties (skin) and in extreme high voltages it even overcomes the insulation properties of air - nutherwords you don't even have to come in contact or be anywhere near it and it will make the leap - try that with 110,,, the higher you go - the more likely the current will be able to make the jump - be it between your skin or the airspace between you and the high voltage,,,

flashlight batterys have way more than just milli-amps - but you don't hear of too many people getting electrocuted whilst changing them now do you??? ahhh so it's a voltage thing ain't it? brilliant deduction.

[Stern]

Well, guess as usual, I didn't get my point across as intended lol. There is obviously a relationship between voltage and current (when taking the resistance of a body into account), but my point was it doesn't matter if its 110V or 600V, if the skin threshold is broken and current flows the difference in the voltage doesn't matter (as 10mA can be lethal, makes no difference if your flowing 10A or 20A, if the path is right your screwed either way). This does NOT mean higher voltages are more dangerous. Stun guns deliver thousands of volts but not enough current to do damage, same with a car ignition, current is too low.

BTW, while a car battery is safe to play with, I would hate to see someone feel its safe when a bank is set up to supply 120VDC (as in emergency lighting systems). The approx skin breakdown voltage (depends on skin dampness) is about 48V, so anything above that will generate a current flow. You can use your hands to jump a 12V car battery with no issues, do it with a 120V bank of batteries and you WILL die. I would rather jump a 45,000 V feed line than a 120VDC bank, as the later has a lower survival chance.

Anyway, the main point I was trying to make was dont assume because the voltage is low its safe, as I seen people die making that mistake.

[Stern]

So now Evan is dangerous?

Higher voltages makes it easier to overcome insulation properties (skin) and in extreme high voltages it even overcomes the insulation properties of air - nutherwords you don't even have to come in contact or be anywhere near it and it will make the leap - try that with 110,,, the higher you go - the more likely the current will be able to make the jump - be it between your skin or the airspace between you and the high voltage,,,

flashlight batterys have way more than just milli-amps - but you don't hear of too many people getting electrocuted whilst changing them now do you??? ahhh so it's a voltage thing ain't it? brilliant deduction.

Well, if you feel suicidal, you can try sicking a wire in one shoulder and a second in your opposite hip (must break the skin and enter soft flesh). Then hook the wires up to a car battery or even a small motorcycle battery. The only reason you don't get electrocuted from small batteries is they can break the skin barrier (unless they get above 50V, then the whole game changes).

[A.K. Boomer]

I already covered that in post 38 with the heart paddles

"that being said Volts are the most critical part of the equation when it comes to current being able to pass through us - if this was not true then me and every single mechanic ever living would be dead just by simple car battery installations - and in fact car batteries are a really good example to use as they have copious amounts of on demand relentless amperage - but their very safe for us to work around bare hands and all and will not electrocute us,,, just don't drop your breaker bar across one... or make two little + and - paddles and place them on each side of your open heart... "

12 volts is very safe - 110 is safer than 440...

[darryl]

Wherever you live, you deal with the situation at hand. Canada is so vast that a short circuit is virtually useless. They all have to be long circuits, so the voltage has to be higher. We don't need breakers since most of our power is very friendly- it comes from Peace river

[Fasttrack]

This is a hilarious discussion. Apparently some of you feel that 600 volt distribution is a poor choice because it is more dangerous. Maybe you need to do a little more investigation as to how electricity makes it to your breaker box.

Are high voltage systems more dangerous than your doorbell circuit? Yes. Does the benefit outweigh the risk? Yes. Is a 600 volt distribution practical for a home shop? No.

By the way, where I come from 600 volts is still considered low voltage. ANSI considers 1000 to 35000 volts AC to be medium voltage and I helped remove and rebuild a motor than ran on 4160 volts. I've also worked on high voltage DC and high voltage RF systems. Sometimes there is no practical substitute. Life is dangerous, get over it.

[A.K. Boomer]

FT - eat a fuquing snickers bar - we've already covered all the pro's and con's while you were taking your afternoon nappy-poo...

[JRouche]

Ok bad etiquette for web sites. Commenting unless I read many replies. I read ten and it took 10 minutes. Im a very slow reader. But Id like to get involved.

I look at our (south of the boarder) 110-115-120VAC as a decent household supply. Its down the middle for inductive or resistive loads and doesn't hurt too much when glanced on. But can kill you dead if clamped on.

Think of the supply back when it was DC. Great resistive supply, lots of current delivered for cheap at a low voltage. But then inductive loads (motors) were being used and now the DC doesn't look so good. Now they have to bump up the voltage and reduce the current for the longer distances to the plants. Remember, the DC was at a low potential (voltage) but relatively high current. Thats why the first consumer loads were light bulbs and heaters. Electricity brought us out of the darkness. I'm a Tesla fan from way back. He was playing with AC while Edison was doing his thing with DC. Love Edison also by the way. I lived in New Jersey as a kid. Took a field trip to the Edison museum.

So AC is the way to go. Motors love higher voltages. Actually really high potential. So I get why 600VAC is used. Remember motors are levers. So if you have a larger wrench on the shaft of a motor it will do more work right? Well 600vac is a larger wrench than 220vac or even 440vac. Our brothers to the North have us beat there. We tend to over current our motors.

Love my Canuck friends. While in the Navy hunting for Russian Subs we got to pull along side of our Sister Ship from Canada. Was great but I forget if it was the Canadian Ship or the British Ship where we were along side of when they gave me a tour of the hull.

YUP, full of beer Now thinking it was the Brits. It was in the Persian Gulf or IO. It was hot and still. Came aboard and had a cold beer. We are a dry at sea Navy. Great times with the Brits and the Canucks for six years.

Not just old Sea stories (though I have a few). A way to get to high voltage AND high frequency supplies. Again Tesla nailed it (oh but their cars are obscene, he would be rolling in his grave).

On the ship we had some 440vac/400hz motors. They were very small for the workload. They were the most efficient motors on the ship. Problem? Most everything else used 60hz. I get it, its dangerous (400hz likes to make friends, it reaches out). But that's why 60hz is around.

Safety has to be there. 600vac at 60 cycles is a great Watt system. You get some torque from the extra voltage and it wont reach out and grab you. You still have to latch on to get killed. But the brush burn on the back of yer hand might be a lil more scorched, at leased you didnt grab a wire. People! Do NOT grab any wires that might be in play. I work on energized circuits. Have for some time. They are hot. Treat them as so, hot or not..

WoW! Been talking for sometime. Time to get off.

Oh? LOL The Ship! We had a circuit that I serviced, it was one of many tubes. This baby ate 50amps at 50kv (50,000 volts), yup it was eating 2.5MW to push 1MW out the feed horn. We had to work on her live to check the power supply. We checked at the tube (it was a klystron). Very simple tube but unlike yer Dads TV tube. All metal, would create X-Rays if powered up ( it was at 10GZ +/-the secret freqs).

We had some Magnetrons that wanted a service also. But they were much more civilized. Their associate circuit cards were more of a pain. Old time Navy. Coming up on 30 years. They must have advanced. Phased Array, old tech (dipoles on a panel) was new in 1984. Now all the Ships use PA radar. The software made that happen.

WOW!!! I have completely broken the forum etiquette. I have been drinking (love retirement) and posting blaa, blaaa

The way I look at it. I have been here for more than a second. I get to go off the rails... Love the topic. JR

[Evan]

I used to service equipment on the Canadian destroyers. Weird power system. 120 vac split phase with the hull at neutral and a pair of 60vac legs. We had to use a honkin big isolation transformer to give the machine a floating neutral that wasn't at 60 volts above machine ground. It may have had something to do with magnetic field equalization. No idea if it is still like that, all those ships have been totally refitted or are out of service since then in the early 70's.

[macona]

Around here for quite a while it was due to idiots trying to steal live electrical wiring in substations and wiring vaults. A number of them turned to charcoal. They are supposedly cracking down on the scrap dealers lately so there haven't been as many.

They passed some scrap laws down here that have cut the thieving back somewhat. Simplest was they scrappers only pay with a check for non-ferrous and then they mail it to you and there is a time period as well.

A year or two ago my dad was walking out to his shop in the evening, he had been in the house watching TV. When he got back to the shop there was a guy in there, at first he thought is was a customer, then he noticed the pile of electrical cords by his feet. The guy took off, my dad called the police. The idjit left a beer can so they got his prints. They did find him. My dad got to rewire the cords on a bunch of stuff. Cant remember if any of the cords were live, I think they were.

[Fasttrack]

FT - eat a fuquing snickers bar - we've already covered all the pro's and con's while you were taking your afternoon nappy-poo...

Yep. You guys covered the pro's and con's alright...

Less copper more deaths. No sure what makes the best sense in that one.

Phil

You're awfully defensive, AK. Maybe you're the one who needs to be taking afternoon naps...

I agree with major machinery and it being more efficient - but if your importing other machinery that's lower and having to run small stepdown transformers then your eating your lunch and creating complexities... like Bandsawguy says' "I buy allot of transformers"

This is assuming that you are putting a step down transformer for each device. If you are going to outfit your factory primarily with machines that only run on 230V, then you should outfit the factory with 230V service, which is a common voltage in Canada (from what I am told). Alternatively, if you have one or two specialized machines that run at 600V, then you install one big pad mount transformer and run 230V service from that for all smaller machines and run a separate high voltage bus for the special machines. (Or if you only have 230V available you can run the transformer backward - I am currently running a Kearney Trecker 2D this way. 208V service goes a transformer that kicks it up to 480 for the mill). That's how many factories, office buildings, laboratories etc operate. They get 480V service or higher and have their "own" transformer on site to step down.

[philbur]

Was it ever otherwise?

Phil

So now Evan is dangerous?

[Doozer]

Canadians use metric volts, and ...

Volts is a metric unit of measure.

--Doozer

[J Tiers]

This IS a silly discussion. A few points...

1) Someone suggested that the 600V was less of a problem for arc flash due to lower current.

THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY TRUE

The important factor for arc flash (and short circuit current) is the "impedance". Every transformer, and the wires, etc contribute series resistance and reactance (usually inductance) that will limit current.

When you want to know the short circuit current (or arc flash) capability of a circuit, you look at the series impedances and then the short circuit current "threat' is (in simplified form) the circuit voltage divided by the impedance. The impedances need to be "referred to" the shorted circuit to be correct. Voltage is important as well, because at low voltages, the impedances are usually too large to develop a high power arc.

Higher voltages usually have fewer and lower impedance transformers in series (because they are higher power), so they generally have more potential for arc flash. And they have (obviously) the voltage to initiate an arc and sustain it over some distance "between electrodes". A higher power arc is a lot more damaging.

yes, of course fusing/circuit protection is also important.... And, BTW, high voltage fuses are much more expensive....

As for the 120V etc,

a) the US uses 240V, we just split it into 2 120V sections for *some* loads. Any higher power "house" loads are on the 240V, such as central air conditioning, electric heat, electric car chargers, etc.

b) yes, higher voltages IN PRACTICE usually are both more damaging to "get across", and have more tendency to cause electrocution.

c) Yes, even a low voltage CAN cause electrocution, i.e. heart stoppage, although as the voltage gets lower the chances decrease until you basically need a laboratory setup to manage to do it.

[quasi]

the phase voltage of 600v line voltage is 347v. 347v is very common in Canada for lighting in Commercial and Industrial lighting. Getting "bit" by 347v does not sting like 120v, it is actually painful.