The voltage gives the impression that the flow is circular, like a chain on a bike. This is not the case from what I am to understand. I hope this makes it all clear as mud. It is not a "how to" manual, but you should make yourself familiar with it.
Good luck and feel free to post questions anytime. If you have any doubts about something, don't hesitate to ask one of us here! Electrical current needs a path in order to work. A neutral provides a path in volt circuits. The current flows toward the load during the positive cycle and flows away from the load during the negative cycle.
Originally posted by Boscodog: Hi guys! Joined: Oct Anaheim, CA. This item is very simple. A single phase transformer, such as the ones commonly used for Residential areas, is nothing more than a volt 2 wire secondary, with a center tap.
The center tap is where the "Neutral" conductor is connected [and is the first point of earth grounding]. A 3 wire DC system works exactly the same way, except there is no transformer. The center tap is between two batteries [or cells] wired in series.
Center tapped secondaries can also be from split coil transformers. In this case, it is tapped imto the X2 - X3 jumper.
It works exactly the same way. There is an extensive discussion on this stuff in this forum, dating back around September, Look for an Archived thread named something like "How would you describe a neutral". Note: The grounded common conductor on a 3 phase 4 wire Wye system doesn't always work the same as the 1 phase 3 wire grounded neutral conductor. It very rarely carries unbalanced current levels. Thanks to all for the prompt replies!
I have to admit I still don't quite 'get' it, but I will I'll be popping in every now and then. Thanks again. Originally posted by Mike: Electrical current needs a path in order to work. Here it is by God So which one is it? It can't do both No wonder I'm confused. I just read that stuff by Bill Beaty and discovered that I have just about every misconception known to man!
My brain is feeling torqued right now. Guess I throw-out most of what I learned in trade school about electical theory after reading Mr. These cable will be two hot wires and a neutral wire. Inside the transformer we have two coils of wire. The primary coil is connected to the power station and the smaller coil will be connected to the property. The two hot wires are connected to each end of the secondary coil and the neutral is connected to the centre of the coil.
Inside the property sometimes outside we will find a main service panel which is often also called a load center or breaker box. If we remove the cover and look inside, we will first find a main breaker. This is usually at the top of the panel but it might be at the bottom. The two hot wires from the electricity meter will connect directly to the lugs on the main breaker. Coming out of the main breaker will be two main bus bars. These are basically exposed metal sheets which carry electricity to the circuit breakers.
The main breaker can be manually flipped to cut the power to everything downstream of the breaker. The main breaker will also provide overcurrent protection to the property, it is rated to handle a set amount of electrical current passing through it typically between and amps, if this is exceeded then it will trip automatically to try and protect the property and electrical circuits.
Inside the panel we will also have a neutral and ground bus bar. This is basically a strip of metal with lots of holes and screws in it. The neutral and ground wires will sit in the holes and the screws lock them in place. In this example we have a block on either side of the panel.
As this is a main panel the two bars can be joined together Check with the NEC for exact details , so we have the connector bar to join the two bus bars. That way we have a shared neutral ground bar. From the electricity meter we will have the neutral wire connected to the lug on top of the neutral ground bar. Notice the green screw, this is bonding the neutral bar to the metal casing of the service panel.
The purpose of the neutral bar is to return the used electricity back to the transformer. It does actually get a little more complex than that because current is flowing backwards and forwards in AC current. If you want to go into the detail you can watch this video. So the two hot wires will provide the electricity and once it is used it will return to the transformer via the neutral bar. Now if we were to take our multimeter and connect one lead to a bus bar and the other lead to the neutral bar, we would get a reading of around V.
If we connect the multimeter leads to the other bus bar and the neutral bar we would again get a reading of around volts. But if we connected the multimeter leads to the two bus bars then we will get a reading of double that at around volts.
So when we look at how the transformer is connected to the main panel. We have the two hot bus bars connected to either end of the secondary coil in the transformer and then we have the neutral bus bar connected to the center of the secondary coil.
So basically when we connect across one bus bar and the neutral bar, we are only using half the coil, therefore we are only picking up half the electrical voltage the transformer can provide and we get volts.
When we connect to the two bus bars we are connecting to the full length of the coil so we can pickup the full voltage which the transformer can provide.
Therefore we get V. If you want to learn how transformers work then tutorials on transformer basics, click here to see. Coming back to the panel. Connected to the bus bars will be our circuit breakers.
The circuit breaker controls the flow of electricity in individual circuits in the property and can be manually tripped to cut the power but it has two important features.
The first feature is overload protection. The circuit breaker is rated to handle a set amount of electrical current. When appliances or lights are connected to the circuit, they will each increase the current in the circuit. If too many things are plugged in or turned on then eventually the current will be more than the breaker can handle and the breaker will automatically trip to cut the power off, to only that circuit, and protect the property. The second feature is short circuit protection.
When the hot and neutral come into direct contact with each other the current will dramatically increase almost instantly.
When this occurs, it creates a magnetic field which will trip the breaker and cut the power automatically. In the example of a simple lighting circuit, which is controlled by a switch. We take the hot wire from the circuit breaker and run this to the switch.
We then run another wire from the switch and over to the light fitting. From the light fitting we have a neutral wire which carries the return current back to the neutral bus bar.
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