I have an outlet in my garage - sort of a 4 pin thing - that says 500v 15a on it.

What's it for? If I wanted to use it for 230/240v tools would it need a step down? Is it single phase?? I see the connectors in Jumbo etc so it's obviously common. I'm baffled though.

surely a 3-phase supply - normally meant for the larger appliances like water heaters and air conditioners. if you know what you are doing, you can pull off three normal, single-phase supplies off of this one, but best left alone unless you have no other choice.... and no, you would not need any transformers as far as I remember, cause each phase is a normal 220 V

We had a 380v supply for an old Miele washing machine and the electrician modified it to a 220 for the new machine in no time at all. He drew certain wires and put a new outlet on the wall. I would imagine an electrician would be able to do the same with the 500v one in your garage. If you don't own your house consider asking the owner if he would see to it. You might say you want to power wash the garage. Owners love tenants who keep places really spotless.

This may seem a bit obvious. Make sure that any work on three phase electrics is carried out by a professional. 500v doesn't give you a second chance. Death is almost a certainty if you get it wrong.

As mentioned earlier. Use an alternative connection if possible.

Rod

I hear what you're saying but don't forget volts don't kill you - amps do .

500 volts and 15 amps could be the design limits of the outlet assembly. It could very well be 380v. Have an electrician check it out, though.

but 15 amps is way up the limit a body can endure

to jerkweed, in case you would like to experiment on it yourself, just try not to touch two wires at once, that will electrecute you for sure

basically, if I remember correctly, each of the three phases is at about 220-240v AC when compared to the earth pin.

Thus if you connect across two phases, it can be anything upto 480v

as to the current, something around 100mA (1000th of an Amp) is enough to be lethal!

your body can take 1000s of volts so long and the current (and hence the power) is very low.

If it is 3-phase, it would have 5-pins:

Earth
Neutral
Live 1
Live 2
Live 3

Not come across 2-phase sockets here (will have a look out for these). We have several 3-phase sockets in the house a couple are used by appliances only using 1 or 2 of the phases.

You should be able to buy the right plug, then if you know what you are doing wire a cable to use just 1 of the phases.

These 3-phase sockets are designed to also take a standard Swiss 'single-phase' plug:

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or it could be one of these:

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this is actually where 380 comes from: 220 * 2*cos(pi/6) ....
also 1000th of an Amp is 1 mA

sorry but I am an electronics engineer

hmmmmm . . . .

i don't know the standard here, but in our country, a 3 phase can actually be only 220 volts.

usual transmission lines are 3 phase, to prevent transmission loses, but households only uses 2 of the 3 phase, to produce 220 volts. on some, 3 phase lines are specialized, i.e. each phase produces 110 volts, connecting 2 will produce 3 phase.

i can't locate an electrical handbook here in switzerland that is in english, all my examples are based on US, and my country Philippines

There are only two kinds of electricity delivered to households:
1 phase = 230V = 3 hole socket
3 phase = 400V =5 hole socket

I've never heard of 2 phase sockets. I assume that swissbob has missed the fifth hole...

first, each of the three lines is out of phase by exactly 120 degrees from each of its neighbours, so the number is not 480V but somewhere around 370v (I'm sure somebody will tell us the correct number soon ... what is it 220 X Cos(120) or something?)

second, how much voltage or current is lethal - depends on a multitude of factors. People have survived 440v and people have been killed by 24v batteries. it all depends...

2 kinds of electricity delivered to households?

I'd probably agree that sockets are either single or 3-phase (I've never seen or heard of a 2-phase socket, but that does not mean it does not exist). But there are numerous socket types.

Most electrical devices you use in the house use only a single phase. But some devices need 2 or 3 phases. These devices can be:

Washing machines/dryers
Dishwashers
Cookers
Heat Pumps
Devices/machinery with heavy duty motors

You can wire a 3-phase plug to use 1, 2 or 3 of the phases depending on the device you want to plug into it (and it's power requirements).

In the UK, ALL 'site' power tools (as in building site) are meant to be 110Volts for safety reasons. In the end it is the current tha kills, but lowering the voltage helps as well in many cases.

Indeed, there are 5 holes.

Yes there are more than two kind of sockets, designed for wet environments and different amperages. By kind of electricity what I meant was limited to what the socket basically provides


To not wire all phases of a 3 phase plug, who would do such a funny thing?


Are you saying that every building site is required to have a huge stepdown converter or to produce its own power own site? I can ask a few friends of mine if this applies to Swiss building sites but assume it does not.

Because some devices ONLY need 2-phases instead of 3.

You can buy electrical cable generally as:

Single core - for running in conduit and installation purposes
2-core - for devices not requiring an earth
3-core - single phase
4-core - 2 phase
5-core - 3 phase

I think you'll find all buildings here will have 3-phases coming into the building. How they are used is a different matter.

This is in the UK, I am not sure if the same rules apply here. I have an ELU flipsaw that is 110Volts that I bought off a friend that had it for 'site' work. It has a portable step-down transformer.

FYI, I've asked my colleague and their tools all run with 230V or 400V current.