On 07/08/17 22:02, Carlos E. R. wrote:
On 2017-08-07 19:43, Paul Groves wrote:
So unless something is causing some other type of interference on the earth? Out earth connection is via the Neutral cable coming into the building.
I don't understand this sentence. You don't have a separate ground wire, instead you use the neutral cable?
The building doesn't have it's own ground pole, a metal rod inserted into the earth?
I'm not familiar with the British electricity code. I guess it will be different! :-p
Yup! For a domestic building we have single-phase 230V supply - NOT 240V as many brits believe! The European standard is 230V, and we moved to the standard maybe 20 years ago? (The standard says that the deviation permitted goes up to the old UK 240V, and down to other countries' old 210V or 220V, so all appliances must be able to cope with everything, but the supply is supposed to be 230V.) Neutral is bonded to ground AT THE SUBSTATION (to the best of my knowledge). All of our electrics are 3-wire, live, neutral and ground, with ground usually bonded - in the house - to the domestic water system. Sounds dangerous until you realise pipes are mostly copper so it's actually a massive electrical sink, and pretty safe. Dunno how it changes things now we're moving to plastic pipes, but I'd have thought it doesn't actually make much difference. Water is a conductor. The other thing is, ALL modern domestic wiring runs through circuit breakers, with an earth leakage trip. And these things are damn sensitive. 30mA leaking to earth, and the inbound supply trips, taking out the entire house electrical supply. So if you cut through your electric lawn mower's cable, you won't get a shock. Everybody in the house will, though, as the trip takes out all power! That's why, in a previous house, I had super-sensitive socket trips fitted in the conservatory - 5mA - so that a garden accident wouldn't take the house out. And all sockets are L/N/E with safety blocks - there's a safety plate that prevents access to live or neutral, until the plug's long earth pin pushes it out of the way. If your appliance doesn't have an earth, the cable still needs a non-functional earth pin in order to allow you to plug it in. I remember a guy on Groklaw - who knew a bit about electrics - being horrified by the french system where they have both L/N/E and L/N sockets - and apparently you can put an L/N/E plug into an L/N socket (sounds dangerous!), but not an L/N plug into an L/N/E socket (where's the harm in that?). Apparently it's perfectly safe, for other reasons, but that's well weird to us brits. Cheers, Wol -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org