Can someone explain to me the electricity in US vs in EU ?

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

The UK has fuses in the plugs, because of how the house wiring was made in the past.

After World War 2 , because there was a shortage of metals (copper and aluminum), instead of pulling wires to each outlet from a central point (the electric panel), in lots of houses they used a single set of wires and route it through several rooms connecting multiple outlets to same set of wires, to save on metal.

So, if a device were to fail and cause a short circuit or something, the fault could cause other devices in the outlets connected to same set of wires to be damaged. So the fuse in each plug is a sort of safety measure ... trip and disconnect device to prevent the wire in the walls from being damaged or to prevent other devices from being affected.

In regular star wiring (where each outlet has wires coming from electric panel) there's a fuse for the outlet in the electrical panel.

Sometimes, the lights in several rooms are connected to one phase with a single fuse, sometimes 1-2 rooms hae outlets on same phase, usually the outlets near the bathroom or kitchen are on separate fuses (because in kitchen you may use higher power devices like electric ovens and because near bathroom you have humidity and higher risk of electric shocks)

 

This being said, the UK plugs are quite nice and have lots of nice features (can only plug them one way, earthing pin connects first, the live and neutral wires inside the plug are shorter so break first if cable is pulled out, leaving earth wire protecting user etc etc) the only downside is that they're kinda big... and they tend to fall with the pins up, and hurt a lot if you step on them.

Lol.  The pins up thing may be somewhat perceived. Stepping on a US style plug is still as bad as stepping on a lego.  There are rarely hospital level puncture wounds which may be what you are talking about.

[mariushm]

40 minutes ago, Intergalacticbits said:

I like to imagine the world with a giant manmade ring around it.  That delivers the fastest TV and internet to the world.  Plus all the world using the same standards for everything.  It would be wild to have one big world wide internet provider with one big world wide electric provider too.  That would be so science fiction cool for me.

We kinda already have, it's called fiber cables through oceans and across the surface of various countries....

 

We are at the point where if each government would finance, it would be very possible to make a fiber cable go around the world at the Ecuator, and have branches at multiple points for every country near... it wouldn't cost very much.

 

See Submarine Cable Map

 

[Kisai]

32 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

With cell phones it was a bit more the other way around. A little anyway.  the US developed the first systems in the 1960’s but AT&T wouldn’t touch them.  GSM came out of the EU, and was so very clearly superior the GOP gave up its protection of AT&T and it was immediately cut up.  Instead of just posting GSM though, Three different systems were used: TDMA, CDMA, and GSM.  TDMA died quickly, and it’s proponent (the new much smaller ATT) switches to CDMA.  CDMA tech mixed with GSM bred LTE, and GSM and CDMA systems picked it up.   LTE spread world wide.  LTE was iirc (and this might not be c) was first used by CDMA carriers because GSM had a (very slow) data system and they didn’t. It was needed to compete with GSM.  We’re talking months though.  It was on the drawing boards in both the EU and the USA before it got released anywhere.

eh... not quite.

 

First there was AMPS (850Mhz spectrum) Analog. This was in operation from 1983 to discontinued in 2008. TDMA (Time Division) and CDMA (Code Division) were two competing standards but both were backwards compatible with AMPS. TDMA was adopted by AT&T Wireless (pre-cingular), Verizon and Sprint adopted CDMA. US and Canadian Wireless carriers were often independant of their landline providers at this time. This changed with Verizon and Cingular (Bell South and SBC, the current AT&T) switching to 3G networks. Verizon had an immediate upgrade path, CDMA2000, where as AT&T had to throw out the TDMA network and use GSM, same as T-Mobile. I worked for AT&T Wireless during this switchover and the Cingular Merger, and good grief GSM was so much better but AT&T Wireless' Siebel software was such a horrible example of web-browser plugin atrocities. It was so bad that they wrote a simple HTML form to do just bill payments that they could ourtsouce because it was so damn slow. Personally I loved looking at the TDMA MSC's directly, and if you ever wondered why your bill's look consistantly, it was because that's exactly what it looked like in the MSC.

 

The successor to GSM was UMTS, but before that AT&T rolled out EDGE, and the first device to make use of that was the iPhone. The TDMA network actually did support data, at the speed of dialup. GPRS and EDGE were "2.5G" tech upgrade to the GSM tech that was brought over from Europe.

 

AMPS, TDMA and CDMA have ESN's to communicate with the AMPS network. It was theoretically possible to use a CDMA phone on a TDMA network and a TDMA network on a CDMA network, and the "bag phones" and car phones were basically that. I had customers try to activate the phone's in some old cars and I'd be like "ok, I'll try but it likely won't work", and usually didn't. The reason is the security mechanism with the ESN (how you prevent cloning) still requires an OTA activation for a TDMA or CDMA phone, and phones that only operate in Analog don't get the OTA. So this is why you were always told to turn off the old phone when you activated a TDMA or CDMA phone, because if you left it on, both devices got the OTA, and both phones would ring, but only one could answer it.

 

Anyway, Post 2G GSM, UMTS (which is a CDMA tech), HSDPA were evolutions of the same GSM technology until finally the entire thing being thrown out for LTE. CDMA2000/1X/EV-DO networks also evolved back into LTE. This is why you can use a Verizon and an AT&T phone on the same networks, unlocked, though initially most devices didn't support this because Verizon dragged it's ass on VoLTE. If you had an early LTE device and roamed onto Verizon, you would only have Data access, and if you had a Verizon phone and roamed onto AT&T, you could have Voice access if the underlying carrier had VoLTE itself. It's all moot now.

 

The only difference in cellular tech today is China with the TD-LTE variation, and even then the same radios in your current pre-5G devices support it, it's just a question if your phone has the necessary amplifiers for those bands in them. Cheaper Android devices may only have the amps needed for the market they serve, but it doesn't make sense to make 10 different models of device with 10 different radio and memory size, and color configurations, so ultimately devices will just converge on one standard set of radio frequency band support otherwise they won't be picked up by carriers.

 

Upcoming 5G is going to create a new mess.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

eh... not quite.

 

First there was AMPS (850Mhz spectrum) Analog. This was in operation from 1983 to discontinued in 2008. TDMA (Time Division) and CDMA (Code Division) were two competing standards but both were backwards compatible with AMPS. TDMA was adopted by AT&T Wireless (pre-cingular), Verizon and Sprint adopted CDMA. US and Canadian Wireless carriers were often independant of their landline providers at this time. This changed with Verizon and Cingular (Bell South and SBC, the current AT&T) switching to 3G networks. Verizon had an immediate upgrade path, CDMA2000, where as AT&T had to throw out the TDMA network and use GSM, same as T-Mobile. I worked for AT&T Wireless during this switchover and the Cingular Merger, and good grief GSM was so much better but AT&T Wireless' Siebel software was such a horrible example of web-browser plugin atrocities. It was so bad that they wrote a simple HTML form to do just bill payments that they could ourtsouce because it was so damn slow. Personally I loved looking at the TDMA MSC's directly, and if you ever wondered why your bill's look consistantly, it was because that's exactly what it looked like in the MSC.

 

The successor to GSM was UMTS, but before that AT&T rolled out EDGE, and the first device to make use of that was the iPhone. The TDMA network actually did support data, at the speed of dialup. GPRS and EDGE were "2.5G" tech upgrade to the GSM tech that was brought over from Europe.

 

AMPS, TDMA and CDMA have ESN's to communicate with the AMPS network. It was theoretically possible to use a CDMA phone on a TDMA network and a TDMA network on a CDMA network, and the "bag phones" and car phones were basically that. I had customers try to activate the phone's in some old cars and I'd be like "ok, I'll try but it likely won't work", and usually didn't. The reason is the security mechanism with the ESN (how you prevent cloning) still requires an OTA activation for a TDMA or CDMA phone, and phones that only operate in Analog don't get the OTA. So this is why you were always told to turn off the old phone when you activated a TDMA or CDMA phone, because if you left it on, both devices got the OTA, and both phones would ring, but only one could answer it.

 

Anyway, Post 2G GSM, UMTS (which is a CDMA tech), HSDPA were evolutions of the same GSM technology until finally the entire thing being thrown out for LTE. CDMA2000/1X/EV-DO networks also evolved back into LTE. This is why you can use a Verizon and an AT&T phone on the same networks, unlocked, though initially most devices didn't support this because Verizon dragged it's ass on VoLTE. If you had an early LTE device and roamed onto Verizon, you would only have Data access, and if you had a Verizon phone and roamed onto AT&T, you could have Voice access if the underlying carrier had VoLTE itself. It's all moot now.

 

The only difference in cellular tech today is China with the TD-LTE variation, and even then the same radios in your current pre-5G devices support it, it's just a question if your phone has the necessary amplifiers for those bands in them. Cheaper Android devices may only have the amps needed for the market they serve, but it doesn't make sense to make 10 different models of device with 10 different radio and memory size, and color configurations, so ultimately devices will just converge on one standard set of radio frequency band support otherwise they won't be picked up by carriers.

 

Upcoming 5G is going to create a new mess.

Gah. Forgot about amps.  Japan has/had some later specialized stuff too.  Don’t know much about it. It may have lived and died.  UTMS being bred from CDMA tech with some GSM stuff was what I was referring to with the not exactly bit.  You seem to be saying simultaneously that CDMA predated GSM and was derived from it.  I may just be being confused here.

[Video Beagle]

12 hours ago, mariushm said:

Most countries that used 110v used 60 Hz. It's not just the US.

Some countries like Japan for example, can have both 50 Hz and 60 Hz and 100v or 110v

I know we're way off topic, but what does te different frequencies do in tis case?

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

i once switched my OLD Sony Tape recorder to 120V in india which runs 240, fried it. t was then i found out US uses 120v.

[mariushm]

8 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

I know we're way off topic, but what does te different frequencies do in tis case?

Nothing, it's just a property of the AC voltage. Computer power supplies immediately convert the AC voltage to DC and most modern power supplies use a circuit (Active Power Factor correction) to boost whatever converted input from 150..350v DC to around 400-420v DC, the higher the voltage, the more efficient the power supply would be.

As for why 60 and 50 ... I don't know why exactly these numbers. Just an educated guess, but I would think 60 was chosen in US to simplify timing... you have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour... so you could now make clocks that count the AC cycles and move the clock hands.

For the same reason - simplification - tv ended up with 60 fields per second (3o frames progressive, 60 frames interlaced), because it made ancient tvs (think black and white and color tvs) much much easier to manufacture, with less components so much cheaper.. the ac frequency was used as a timing mechanism. Probably why cinema stuck with 30fps (29.976) and 24fps (12 = 2/5 of 60) because they could match the blanking after every frame with the polarity change on the ac input, so again, easier to control shutter and motor speed on projectors.

 

https://www.fluke.com/en/learn/best-practices/measurement-basics/electricity/what-is-frequency

Quote

 

Alternating current (ac) frequency is the number of cycles per second in an ac sine wave. Frequency is the rate at which current changes direction per second. It is measured in hertz (Hz), an international unit of measure where 1 hertz is equal to 1 cycle per second.

• Hertz (Hz) = One hertz is equal to one cycle per second.
• Cycle = One complete wave of alternating current or voltage.
• Alternation = One half of a cycle.
• Period = The time required to produce one complete cycle of a waveform.

At its most basic, frequency is how often something repeats. In the case of electrical current, frequency is the number of times a sine wave repeats, or completes, a positive-to-negative cycle.

The more cycles that occur per second, the higher the frequency.

 

 

 

[IntMD]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

They might also have circuit breakers.  I’m not sure one way or the other about that one.  The Comes up here because I’m Britian power strips aren’t needed but replacing power cords happens.  big plugs with fuses in them is a thing though.  They also have some odd and fairly old fashioned wet area security too.  Lights in bathrooms and kitchens are on non-metallic pull chains.  Or they used to be

You can just replace the fuse in the power cord, you dont actually have to change the entire cord if the fuse pops. Also, I've never seen anywhere in Britain that doesnt have circuit breakers at the main panel, but there may still be some old places around that never had that sorted for some reason.

 

Bathrooms aren't allowed sockets within 3 metres of a bath or shower, except for units with shaver (sockets for electric razors that are low current) sockets on them and even these have to be a certain distance from water. This rules out most normal sockets in bathrooms in Britain as they are normally pretty small, so you are unlikely to be more than 3m from a water source. Light switches if they are inside bathrooms are still pull switches like you said.

 

In kitchens light switches & sockets have to be a minimum of 30cm horizontally from the sink. I've never seen a pull switch for the lights in a kitchen, but could imagine that happening if it was absolutely tiny.

[MetEishYa]

On 1/12/2020 at 11:55 PM, mariushm said:

Most countries that used 110v used 60 Hz. It's not just the US.

Some countries like Japan for example, can have both 50 Hz and 60 Hz and 100v or 110v ... it's because some regions imported generators made in US.

 

EU countries had voltages like 220v , 230v and 240v.  Some years ago, everyone got together and standardized on 230v +/- 10% or something like that (could be +10% , -5%, don't care enough to research now and it's not that important)

It's to make it easier to reuse transformers and equipment between various EU countries and simplify electronic equipment.

So basically 240v is still within that 230v +/-10% and the power stations din't bother to adjust the output to 230v (maybe the design doesn't even allow that)

Generally power stations dont output at 230v. Here they output at 20 000V generally. They transform it to 132kV or as high as 765kV for transmission. At the sub station it is about 11kV and only once closer to domestic properties then transformed down to 230V.

 

Quick fact to produce the 50 Hz signal the turbines in a power station spin at 3000 rpm. For 60 Hz they will spin at 3600 rpm