110 volts a.c. from 220 ac without transformer

[pachomius2000]

I live in a place with electrical current supplied to homes on 220 a.c.

Sometimes I have an electrical appliance requiring 110 a.c.

To save myself the expense of a step down transformer What I do, which I learned from a local electrician, is to use one wire from the 220 a.c. home mains, and for the other wire I substitute a wire connected to a metal rod driven into the garden ground, i.e., the surface of the planet earth covered with soil.

I never understand how this kind of a procedure works. Can some people here explain it to me, please?

I looked up electricity books for common people, but got no enlightenment from them.

Anyway, is this the way it works?

A.c. current/voltage goes up and comes down to zero in one direction with one wire, and then with the other wire it goes down and comes up to zero in the opposite direction. Now, the machine producing the electricity has a middle wire that is connected to the earth, this is the wire of zero current/voltage.

From the highest point of one direction to the lowest point of the opposite direction you arrive at say some higher voltage than 220 volts, by adding the highest reach and the lowest reach of each half cycle; however the average voltage can come to 220 volts.

Now, if I just use one wire of one direction, not the zero wire, then I get only an average 110 volts; but I still have to bring back the current to the machine otherwise how can any work get done? And this step is done by connecting the other wire from the 110 volts appliance to a metal rod stuck to earth, thereby that metal rod is joined to the middle zero wire of the electricity generating machine by way of the earth soil?

What do you guys say? Is the soil then a giant conductor bridging two points that can be hundreds of miles apart?

Pachomius

[McD]

I live in a place with electrical current supplied to homes on 220 a.c.

Sometimes I have an electrical appliance requiring 110 a.c.

To save myself the expense of a step down transformer What I do, which I learned from a local electrician, is to use one wire from the 220 a.c. home mains, and for the other wire I substitute a wire connected to a metal rod driven into the garden ground, i.e., the surface of the planet earth covered with soil.

I never understand how this kind of a procedure works. Can some people here explain it to me, please?

I looked up electricity books for common people, but got no enlightenment from them.

Anyway, is this the way it works?

A.c. current/voltage goes up and comes down to zero in one direction with one wire, and then with the other wire it goes down and comes up to zero in the opposite direction. Now, the machine producing the electricity has a middle wire that is connected to the earth, this is the wire of zero current/voltage.

From the highest point of one direction to the lowest point of the opposite direction you arrive at say some higher voltage than 220 volts, by adding the highest reach and the lowest reach of each half cycle; however the average voltage can come to 220 volts.

Now, if I just use one wire of one direction, not the zero wire, then I get only an average 110 volts; but I still have to bring back the current to the machine otherwise how can any work get done? And this step is done by connecting the other wire from the 110 volts appliance to a metal rod stuck to earth, thereby that metal rod is joined to the middle zero wire of the electricity generating machine by way of the earth soil?

What do you guys say? Is the soil then a giant conductor bridging two points that can be hundreds of miles apart?

Pachomius

Depending on where you live, this could be highly illegal.

Having said that, the earth is where all voltage will always "tries to go"... or more accurately, it tries to force electrons to go there. If it goes there through the compressor of your fridge, thereby energizing the coils in the process, it doesn't "care" just so long as it makes it to ground somehow.

PS: Attn: wise guys: Electrical/electronic theory was nearly two decades ago for me, but I do remember the "hole flow" theory. I am trying to explain it in layman's terms. You should have seen what I wrote before I edited it.

[placebo messiah]

you're talking about voltage of a waveform

it's 220 volts, which I'm gonna guess is 220 volts peak to peak

if you ground out one side, suddenly all you have is the voltage from one half phase (the live wire) and that voltage will measure from the zero-crossing to the peak at 110, since the other phase is now missing.

The ground will also offer a certain amount of impedence

I would expect this to have a danger element to it as well, since anything in close proximity to the grounded rod will be in jeopardy of getting electrocuted, so grounding near any subterranian cables/pipes would promote a hazard.

[McD]

Ok, I read to too fast. You live in a place (a country) in which normal housepower is 220. Gotcha.

I rushed through your post and thought you had 220 volt service (2 different phases of 110 vac) but for some reason had no neutral.

Ok, so there are two-possible answers here, because I simply do not know what is normal for your country.

1. If you have two phases of 110 vac then using one of them to ground will give you about 110 volts. You can test this by opening your breaker box, and putting a volt meter on one wire (of any one breaker) and touching the other lead of your meter to ground. If it reads between 110 and 130, then you are in business, provided the laws in your area do not prohibit taking a phase to ground.

2). If you have one phase of 220, which you will be able to tell by measuring the voltage of one wire of any one breaker to ground. If you measure 220 volts, you are going to be buying a transformer, unless you want to get a gigantic resistor of a sufficient wattage to handle your appliances and a sufficient resistance to act as a voltage divider.

you're talking about voltage of a waveform

it's 220 volts, which I'm gonna guess is 220 volts peak to peak

Nope, it's root means square.

[Corona688]

Is the soil then a giant conductor bridging two points that can be hundreds of miles apart? Yes. It's not an especially good conductor but it's got such an enormous volume it doesn't really matter if you get a good enough connection to it. Things like large AM radio stations also need an earth ground, and they often find getting a good enough ground difficult; I've heard of things like burying a huge grid of wires and flowing water over it.

[Brian_Boru]

I live in a place with electrical current supplied to homes on 220 a.c.

Sometimes I have an electrical appliance requiring 110 a.c.

To save myself the expense of a step down transformer What I do, which I learned from a local electrician, is to use one wire from the 220 a.c. home mains, and for the other wire I substitute a wire connected to a metal rod driven into the garden ground, i.e., the surface of the planet earth covered with soil.
[snip some stuff]

What do you guys say? Is the soil then a giant conductor bridging two points that can be hundreds of miles apart?

PachomiusThe soil (ground/earth) is a giant conductor and is used as the return line for power distribution, at least in the US. The earth is a excellent conductor and all the power you use is returned through the earth to the power station.

As to the voltage, the US system is 220 volts to the house. The majority of houses in the US are fed 220 volts with a center return to the tap in a power transformer. Two hot lines and one neutral. You get 220 Vac if you get your power from the two "hot" lines. Most devices in the US are 110 Vac and they get power from one hot line and the common return, known as neutral.

I don't know where you live but I'd bet that your system is using a similar transformer with a center tap but the tap doesn't get fed to the house. Your using earth ground which will "split" the transformer.

I'm much better at diagramming the circuit so my explanation might leave a lot to be desired.

An image like this:
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/power-transformer-wiring.gif
is worth a 1000 words. Where you live the center ground probably isn't used in the house but is at the pole transformer and connected to earth. They use 120/240 vs. 110/220 but they are the same. There is also 3-phase which is commonly 208 Vac.

For more on this: How Power Grids Work (http://science.howstuffworks.com/power.htm) which is all good info but the sections titled "taps" and "at the house" are pertinent.

[Derec]

you're talking about voltage of a waveform

it's 220 volts, which I'm gonna guess is 220 volts peak to peak


No, AC voltage on power circuits is given as RMS voltage. It basically means that it delivers the same power as a 220 V DC circuit but peak-to-peak voltage is actually a lot higher (622 V)
http://www.bcae1.com/voltages.htm

Derec

[I. C. Unicorns]

Whoa, I am trying to figure out where you live! In the US, electricity is suppled to the home via three wires, two "hot" wires and one "neutral" wire. The two hot wires each have nominally 120V 60Hz ac on them, but they are 180 degrees out of phase, so their peak voltages are opposite polarites. One hot wire is routed throughout one half the house and the other hot wire is routed through the other half. This balances the loads across the wires. The neutral wire is routed throughout the house and is the return path for both hot wires. This system supplies the 120V to lights and outlets.

For appliances which require more power (furnace, dryer, stove) BOTH hot wires run to it as well as the neutral wire. The high power part of the appliance (heating elements) has the hot wires connected across it which supplies the difference of the two 120V circuits (120V - (-120V) = 240V). The neutral is available on the appliance plug only to operate the 120V appliance gizmos (timers, lights, buzzers, etc.)

Now on to the grounded rod. Are you sure you are using only a rod stuck in the earth as the return? What happens in properly wired houses is the neutral wire is connected to the ground wire (the third prong on the outlet) in the fuse box. The ground wire is grounded by connecting it to a grounding rod and often by connecting it to metal pipes which run through the ground and the house. It would be possible to create a path from the hot prong of the plug to a pipe which makes a path back to the ground wire then back to the neutral wire, a path that was never intended to be. If you drove an isolated rod into the ground somewhere near the other rod, then you would also create another path, albeit a poor one, back to ground then to the neutral.

On to scenario 2. Let's assume you are in Great Britain where power is 230V 50Hz. Connect one side of the implement you are powering to the 230V and connect the other side to a rod driven in the ground. A return path is created through the ground (if it is wet) to the ground rod at the fuse box. If this is what you are doing, I think you are using the ground as a resistor which drops the voltage to some voltage lower than 230V but that is not guaranteed (and it wastes about half the power used). You should take a voltmeter if you have one and measure the voltage from the hot wire to the rod and see what it says. It will probably vary depending on what you plug in. I'm very curious :D

There are systems that use a single wire supply and an earth return, rural Australia and NZ, but that is used by the utility side of the line only at voltages over 10,000V. At high voltages, the power loss is acceptably low to the utility, at a savings of one wire. There is still at transformer at the house and a neutral wire to provide 220V to the house.

More info is needed, please input data.

[Derec]

I think you are using the ground as a resistor which drops the voltage to some voltage lower than 230V but that is not guaranteed (and it wastes about half the power used). You should take a voltmeter if you have one and measure the voltage from the hot wire to the rod and see what it says. It will probably vary depending on what you plug in. I'm very curious :D

Yes, that would be a very poor voltage divider. The voltage drop on the resistor would vary greatly with current: V=R*I. A little better way is to use two equal resistors in series, then tap accross one in parallel to get half the voltage. However, your load changes the resistance so this system is far from perfect as well. If you use high resistances the load would decrease the effective resistance of the pair thus dropping the voltage accross it. The key to having a stable voltage is that the load resistance of the device be significantly higher than the value of the resistor.
If you use very low resistances, you are wasting power as a lot of current will flow through the resistors themselves.

A lose lose situation really.


More info is needed, please input data.

Yes, it is really idle speculation until we know where he lives.

Derec

[placebo messiah]

ok i didnt know it was rms

as far as the ground acting like a transmission line on AC, I'm gonna take a wild guess and suspect the ground isn't truly completing the circuit as much as compressing and dilating the superabundance of valence and ionic electron reserves in the earth.....sort of like how a tall sealed column of water still has some squish and give to it.

I'd like to know if there's any physics ppl among you who can expand on this

[Obey_Matthew_6_6]

I live in a place with electrical current supplied to homes on 220 a.c.

Sometimes I have an electrical appliance requiring 110 a.c.

Keep in mind, 220v/50hz stepped down to 120/110v is still going to be 50hz. Electronics will not run at proper speeds (clocks specifically will lose 10 min/hour) and may not operate properly or at all. Electric motors will also run somewhat slower.

[Corona688]

Keep in mind, 220v/50hz stepped down to 120/110v is still going to be 50hz. Electronics will not run at proper speeds (clocks specifically will lose 10 min/hour) and may not operate properly or at all. Not all clocks will lose time, just ones that depend on mains frequency.

[pachomius2000]

Thanks, guys, for your goodness in giving me instructive replies.

I really don't know much about electricity except how to be careful; but that trick of getting 110 volts ac from 220 volts ac house mains, that I learned from the neighborhood electrician. I called him once and watched him do it; and now I do it also whenever I get a device that runs only on 110 volts ac.

Your explanations get me informed to a good extent.


Just this curious question further, if you guys are still around:

Suppose I get one wire from the house mains of 220 volts ac, either of the two wires or by way of either holes from the mains outlet socket, and touch it to the garden grounds, will I trigger a short, thereby blowing a fuse in the fuse box?

I learned from simple electricity books that if I don't know what will happen if I try something, TO NOT TRY IT AT ALL.

What do you guys think? Considering that I can run a 110 volts ac device on the setup as I have described in my OP.

Thanks for your accommodation, I am just curious about this idea which however can be dangerous or at least can blow a fuse.

Pachomius

[DougP]

I am going to send this to S&S where it will likely get more play and responses.

-Doug

[jayh]

Going to ground may not divide the power AT ALL.

Typical wiring in the US 110VAC involves one 'hot' leg and one neutral leg (essentially already grounded). Running the 'hot' to ground will still produce 110, running the 'neutral' to ground will produce zero.

The transformer is NOT that expensive and cheaper usually than the appliance that could be destroyed if conditions are not right.

[Schneibster]

Suppose I get one wire from the house mains of 220 volts ac, either of the two wires or by way of either holes from the mains outlet socket, and touch it to the garden grounds, will I trigger a short, thereby blowing a fuse in the fuse box?Hell, yes! Don't even THINK about this! DON'T DO IT!

I learned from simple electricity books that if I don't know what will happen if I try something, TO NOT TRY IT AT ALL.Excellent advice, as good as any given here. Not better; folks here are generally pretty responsible. But as good. Please be very careful.

What do you guys think? Considering that I can run a 110 volts ac device on the setup as I have described in my OP.Considering that, I think you have 220V RMS two-phase coming into the house with no neutral. I also think that unless there is a GROUNDED neutral center-tap on the house or neighborhood transformer that steps the several-thousand-volt distribution lines down to your 220V, you are taking a big chance; if you don't know this for sure, and it turns out there is no grounded neutral, THE VOLTAGE COULD SUDDENLY JUMP TO 220 AND YOU COULD BE ELECTROCUTED OR THE EQUIPMENT COULD CATCH FIRE. Unless there is a grounded center-tap, there is nothing to reference the outputs of the transformer to ground. BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL AND VERY, VERY CERTAIN YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. Call the electrician again and give him some money and ask him why it works; you should hear about the GROUNDED center-tap I and others have spoken about. If he doesn't know, DON'T DO IT. You would be taking your life in your hands.

[I. C. Unicorns]

Suppose I get one wire from the house mains of 220 volts ac, either of the two wires or by way of either holes from the mains outlet socket, and touch it to the garden grounds, will I trigger a short, thereby blowing a fuse in the fuse box?

Yes. This is the same as sticking a bare wire in each hole of the outlet. Only one of the holes has power connected to it, which one is hard to say since two prong sockets are unpolarized.


What do you guys think? Considering that I can run a 110 volts ac device on the setup as I have described in my OP.

You can't beat success, I suppose. If it is a low power device that doesn't require 60Hz and you don't care if it breaks, then fine. Also some things have switch mode power supplies which can be powered from many different voltages and frequencies.

[Stu]

Just for the record, pachomius, where do you live (sorry if I've skimmed through the thread a little too quickly)?

If it's a country where 220 or 230 VAC is the nominal voltage (just about anywhere but Japan or North America, if I recall correctly), that trick almost certainly won't work.

Even in North America, the only possible way it could work is if you have some strange "two phase" supply (i.e. instead of 110V and neutral, you have two 110V supplies 180 degrees apart). It's possible, but unlikely, and I've never seen it.

Distribution is almost universally three-phase, and domestic supplies are one phase, with a neutral wire and a ground wire. These are nominally the same voltage, but the neutral wire is supposed to carry electricity and the ground wire is a safety feature, some homes have safety features that trip if electricity ever follows a ground path (such as through a human standing in a pool of water).

The advice to leave it the hell alone if you don't understand it is certainly appropriate - messing with mains wiring is dangerous and probably illegal, it is much better to fork out for a step-down transformer.

You might be lucky with some devices, though - PC power supplies, for instance, let you toggle between 110V and 220V supplies. It's also possible to rewire some electronic devices manually, but the same advice about not understanding it fully also applies here.

[Loren Pechtel]

You might be lucky with some devices, though - PC power supplies, for instance, let you toggle between 110V and 220V supplies. It's also possible to rewire some electronic devices manually, but the same advice about not understanding it fully also applies here.

And some devices work ok on either. They are normally devices meant for travel use.

[IanC]

Id like to second the "DONT DO THIS".

Ian

[Coleman Smith]

I noticed that you mentioned the circuits being protected by fuses.

I suggest that you consider upgrading to ground fault interrupters.

Fuses will protect devices.

They kill people.

The reason is that by the time the fuse reaches a sufficient temperature to melt and thereby open the human in the circuit may already have received a fatal shock.

[epepke]

I live in a place with electrical current supplied to homes on 220 a.c.

Sometimes I have an electrical appliance requiring 110 a.c.

To save myself the expense of a step down transformer What I do, which I learned from a local electrician, is to use one wire from the 220 a.c. home mains, and for the other wire I substitute a wire connected to a metal rod driven into the garden ground, i.e., the surface of the planet earth covered with soil.

I never understand how this kind of a procedure works. Can some people here explain it to me, please?

I've only done significant electrical work in the US. I've only done some single-circuit electrical work in the UK.

In the US, most houses have a 234-volt 2-phase service. That means three wires. The central wire is neutral, and it's supposed to be at ground (called "earth" elsewhere) level. It's supposed to be grounded at every house. At my house as a kid, the wire to the ground stake had separated, so I fixed it.

You get 117 volts by using the hot wire with respect to the ground. You get 234 volts by using one hot wire against the other. So, in the US, getting 117 volts is easy by taking one hot wire against the neutral. You use the two hots in opposition for devices that need 234 volts, such as dryers, ovens, arc welders, air compressors, etc.

Maybe other countries do the same thing; I don't know. If they do, then what you suggest would work, but it would of course be much better to take the second tap off the neutral. This would seem to me a bit odd, though. There are some devices, such as heaters, which benefit from 234 volts. However, 117 volts is much better for other uses. For example, motors. 234-volt motors require way too much iron, which is why European vacuum cleaners are the size of Daleks.

[epepke]

I noticed that you mentioned the circuits being protected by fuses.

I suggest that you consider upgrading to ground fault interrupters.

A fuse and a GFI are totally different things.

Fuses or circuit breakers limit current. GFIs compare the current going out with the current coming in. This sounds complex, but it's easy to do. Just make a coil with the outward and the inward wires in opposite directions. They will balance out exactly and produce no net magnetic fluctuation. But if there is another current path, such as through a body to ground, there will be a net magnetic fluctuation, and this is easy to detect.

[epepke]

Even in North America, the only possible way it could work is if you have some strange "two phase" supply (i.e. instead of 110V and neutral, you have two 110V supplies 180 degrees apart). It's possible, but unlikely, and I've never seen it.

It's not strange. It's nearly universal in the US. Unless the house is at least 50 years old, that's what you have.

[epepke]

Nope, it's root means square.

Root mean square. Meaning the root of the mean of the square. Which, for a sine wave, is 2^(1/2)/2 of the peak-to-peak.

[Stu]

It's not strange. It's nearly universal in the US. Unless the house is at least 50 years old, that's what you have.

I had heard of it before (didn't realise it was very common, though), but the reason I found it strange is because he seemed to indicate that you get the 220 V out of the outlet. The way I understand it is you have 110V out of the sockets, and can get 220V if you go line-to-line.

I guess it makes sense to go with a two-phase system for stuff like heating/ovens/lighting if you want to minimise the risk of cables overheating.

[epepke]

I had heard of it before (didn't realise it was very common, though), but the reason I found it strange is because he seemed to indicate that you get the 220 V out of the outlet. The way I understand it is you have 110V out of the sockets, and can get 220V if you go line-to-line.

Most of the outlets are single-phase 117 V, because they use the neutral and one side of the service. This caused induction problems in days of old, such as when people hooked up a monitor to one outlet and a computer to the other, or when they did the same thing with audio equipment. You got wigglies and buzz if for no other reasons than simply due to induction in the ground lines. But nowadays, switching power supplies rock.

People say 110 or 120 because it's easier to remember than 117, but 117 is the standard. Besides, the voltage varies a lot, and both 110 and 120 are within the range of normal variation. I've seen voltages as low as 95, but those in houses before they banned aluminum wires. I kept telling people that aluminum was a stupid idea, because aluminum oxidized, but you don't notice it because the oxide is slightly larger than the metal (unlike iron, where the oxide is smaller, so rust progresses quickly). But did people listen? Nooooo!

[Stu]

This is why I find it strange - you either have 110V (117 to be more precise then) out of your outlet already, or you have a 220/230V line-to-neutral outlet, either way the "trick" described isn't going to help.

[epepke]

This is why I find it strange - you either have 110V (117 to be more precise then) out of your outlet already, or you have a 220/230V line-to-neutral outlet, either way the "trick" described isn't going to help.

Again, I'm fairly ignorant about how things work in other countries. If there is a 220-240 volt service with respect to a neutral that should be grounded, it shouldn't work.

However, the OP says that an electician suggested it, which seems to me to indicate, as has earlier been suggested, a two-phase with no central neutral. Since it's presumably coming off a transformer, either side could be grounded arbitrarily. So if that's the case, it wouldn't work. However, if the OP be correct and it did work, then that would imply that it would work somewhat, but only if the center were grounded elsewhere.

Without getting into an international pissing contest, I think that the US two-phase scheme is a pretty good way to do it. In the US, we have these little devices that cost a couple of bucks. You can plug them into a 3-wire outlet. There are 3 neon bulbs, one between each pair of wires. A neon bulb fires at about 80 volts. Based on the pattern of bulbs lit, you can tell how the outlets are wired. I'm sure these exist in other countries. One of those would settle the matter real fast.

[skepticalbip]

This is why I find it strange - you either have 110V (117 to be more precise then) out of your outlet already, or you have a 220/230V line-to-neutral outlet, either way the "trick" described isn't going to help.
It would certainly be helpful to know what country the OP was referring to. It sounds like the house is wired with two 117V phases and no neutral at the outlets.

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/3phases.gif

A short discussion can be found here:
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/groundloop/electrical_wiring.html
.

[James T]

Again, I'm fairly ignorant about how things work in other countries. If there is a 220-240 volt service with respect to a neutral that should be grounded, it shouldn't work.Doesn't work :thumbs: (electrical engineer in a country with 230Vac single phase house mains as standard).

[Newton's Cat]

This is a bit off topic:

I once lived in a rented house in the UK where I experienced a constant sense of being "in danger". This feeling got so strong that I decided to leave. As I was clearing up a day or two before leaving I got a shock from the neutral wire of an electrical apparatus. The landlord called in an electrician - who discovered that the meter had been wired the wrong way round.