bizzare electrical question

[guyjin]

So there are some appliances that require more than the usual household current. Some houses have special high voltage sockets for such appliances. Sometimes these deliver 208 volts, sometimes 240.

Assuming the socket actually delivers 240 volts, could you connect a European console (which wants anywhere from 220 to 260 volts) and have it work? or is it different somehow because it's in two phases?

[Tatsujin]

i assume in your country which is based on 100/110V, a voltage of 208 resp. 240V would be a 3-phase AC line, which mostly is used for devices which requires a higher consumption of energy like strong AC motors in machines etc. i don't recommend to plug a normal consumer 220/230V device to that line, until you're not 100%ly sure about of what line you're dealing with.

[guyjin]

I'm not going to try such a crazy thing (for starters, I have no such outlets in my house); but the idea was bugging me all day.

[nectarsis]

WOuldn't the pins be set different also?

[nat]

It definitely will NOT work.

European power is single-phase 220V current. The outlets in the USA you're talking about are three-phase "industrial" mains. Single-phase and three-phase current is delivered in a completely different manner. If you were to plug a single-phase device into a three-phase mains, you would likely melt said device and blow your circuit breaker in the process.

All that said, the USA three-phase outlets should have a different socket orientation than European single-phase lines, thus making such a connection impossible.

EDIT: We had a situation at work recently where a city-hired contractor doing an intersection revision incorrectly wired a three-phase 240V mains onto a 110V residential circuit and destroyed all electronics plugged in at that moment for half a block. It's costing the city, and ultimately the contractor at fault, over half a million in damages.

[Michael Helgeson]

Yea, those sockets tend to be for very large power items, like massive cookers/stoves/ovens, or dryers, or even some arcade and amusement devices.
I used to have to redo the sockets a lot back when I worked in maintenance, way way long ago.

[guyjin]

It definitely will NOT work.

European power is single-phase 220V current. The outlets in the USA you're talking about are three-phase "industrial" mains. Single-phase and three-phase current is delivered in a completely different manner. If you were to plug a single-phase device into a three-phase mains, you would likely melt said device and blow your circuit breaker in the process.

yay.

All that said, the USA three-phase outlets should have a different socket orientation than European single-phase lines, thus making such a connection impossible.

Well, I imagined an adaptor of some kind would be needed...

EDIT: We had a situation at work recently where a city-hired contractor doing an intersection revision incorrectly wired a three-phase 240V mains onto a 110V residential circuit and destroyed all electronics plugged in at that moment for half a block. It's costing the city, and ultimately the contractor at fault, over half a million in damages.

D:  I don't suppose surge protectors were any help?

[Tatsujin]

no surge protections for such a case, since it isn't a surge problem

[guyjin]

how is changing the voltage fron 120 to 240 not a surge?

[Necromancer]

European power is single-phase 220V current. The outlets in the USA you're talking about are three-phase "industrial" mains.

I'm not an electrician, but I'm certain that the residential 220v outlets guyjin speaks of (for electric ranges, dryers, and what not) are single-phase and different than the three-phase industrial beasts.  Single-phase 220v is obtained by connecting across both live conductors, rather than from one conductor to neutral as is the case for 110v.

how is changing the voltage fron 120 to 240 not a surge?

Surge protectors are only meant to shield devices from momentary spikes in voltage and not from constant over voltage, so they likely would've died pretty quickly and no longer been effective.

[Tatsujin]

right, in EMC technically point of view, a surge is a very short arising voltage spike up to several kV with short on-time of only few uS, mostly coupled into a line caused by lightnings or other strong (N)EMP sources. for those cases a surge protection is designed.