IAm5toned
Well-Known Member
he is referring to what as known as a balanced load condition...So I was talking to a caregiver my sister knows who stopped by. He's expanding a lot. He said he had 20 HID lights put in with 70 to 80 more coming. I asked what kind of Amps. he has. As in Panels, he thought 4 or 5 100 Amp panels. I said "all lights to 240v, right?" He said the electrician said the 110v was better and the efficiency was the same. Is that electrician Crazy? The electrician said something about Waves he didn't get. Balance of a 240v I think. I told the guy I was pretty sure it was a 10% saving. Why would you run 70 to 100, 400W to 1000W bulbs what way? Did I miss something here? Glad I try to get this stuff so someday when I get to expand I'll have a clue.
Daniels
a balanced load works like this-
say you had 100 amps running on a panel with 50 amps on one phase and 50 amps on another, single phase loads.
now you know all the neutrals for those circuits hit the same neutral bar in the panel... you could say the phase 1 and phase 2 are bonded together via the neutral.
and another thing to keep in mind is that EMF seeks the path of least resistance to opposite potential, opposite potential being anything that is at opposite polarity...
and finally, it takes energy for current to travel down the neutral wire from the panel and dissipate into mother earth
so keeping that all in mind. the way it works is this- 50 amps of neutral load on phase one will cancel out 50 amps of neutral load on phase 2... because they are at opposite potential and bonded together @ the neutral bar. if you were to take an ammeter and try to take an amp reading of the service entry neutral conductor, it would show 0.0 amps, no current loss due to ground dissapation. now lets play with it abit... take 20 amps from phase one and move it to phase 2, now you have 40 amps on phase1, and 60 amps on phase 2. your meter will now read 20 amps of current on the neutral, the remaining 80 amps are still being cancled out... this is an unbalanced load condition, and thats how it works in real life.
a balanced load only exists on paper. never forget that... there are too many minute differences between each individual load.. there is 100 amps running, say 6 circuits, 4 15 amps and 2 20 amps, and every one of them are in different places throughout your grow room, different lengths of wire, different ambeint temps, one wire may have more bends than another in it, and that will also affect the balance. a balanced load will only occur if the loads at opposite potential are exactly the same, and that just does not happen anywhere but on paper... even 4 wires (2 120v circuits sharing a neutral)in the same pipe will be unbalanced, because the bends in the pip, the cables all have different radius, and that is just enough to alter the balance. this is also the principle that allows 120v circuits on opposite phases to share a single neutral... since each circuit is only x amount of amps, if both is on, the smaller load will always cancel out the larger, and the remaining current is on the neutral.
whew, long winded explanation :
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