2 different Festool power cords.???

[mino]

Btw someone commented on 3-phase above being 60° apart; it's 120°

Was me ... fixed, thanks! Was some time I dig into this and memory is not as it should be ...

 

[Coen]

Me thinks its all about the money [wink] [wink].....  At the volume a company like Festool operates on, saving even $0.20 per item adds up to big bucks. 

I've mostly relegated the 16ga cords to the bottom shelf in the back of my shop.  Like others I've trimmed the tab off one or two cords....

I think any perceived savings is offset by additional costs of having to maintain near duplicate items in inventory  and all the other duplication associated with the two items. In the warehouse you have to create a unique space to stock each cord that are nearly identical and difficult to tell apart by eye without close inspection.

And then you create the aggregation for users with two cords.

It would be easier on all just to have the one cord rated for all Plug-It tools. And it would cost nothing to make the change, just include the 16Ga cord from here on out, and let the 18Ga cord fade away.

Image the number of SKU's that can be scrapped if 110V where to disappear.  8)

It would also solve the problem of power circuitry being designed half-assed to be compatible with 110V too. Like the Creative Gigaworks S750 sets. They all break down and with the fix 110V compatibility is usually removed

I am a big fan of standardization. That is also why I think Makita is bonkers with their ridiculous amount of different dust extractor ports.

 

[demographic]

We can try and justify this however we want but to me uts still a gormless idea to have two different cords.

 

[DeformedTree]

Really? Everything in households is regular 16A Schuko and for the cooktop we have 3-phase, using same cross section wiring for 11,1 kW. Usually 1 per home. Or empty conduit in case the cooktop uses gas.

And even things like computer powersupplies run more efficient on 230V

Everything in a household runs off a 15Amp plug here, just like you have a 16A plug for everything. The other plugs are used for locations you don't have plugs.

Computers convert it to low voltage DC, nothing changes.  The efficiency loss is in the AC to DC conversion.

For the big tools like the OF2200, Festool could have given it a 20A plug.

It doesn't? It has a 15A plug? So the US gets a nerfed OF2200? OF1650?

No, it's an OF2200, running full power is very rare, and even if it does, it would be a short period of time. You can pull more than 15As on a circuit for a while before the breaker kicks.  Users of OF2200 don't report issues.
[/quote]

The safety thing is taken care of by reduced risk of fire from currents half as big and partly insulated plugpins. Likelyhoid of getting zapped with 230V is enormously reduced. Use savings in copper for full coverage with 30mA RCD's. These stories of people zapping themselves by disconnecting their phonecharger are something US-only with the bare pins. Impossible with the europlug.

And that you guys in de US don't particularly seem to limit energy use is known yeah :+

Reducing currents doesn't change the safety.  The wire is correctly sized, there is no increased chance of fire because more amps are involved.  Increased voltage is the safety issue.  Who is zapping themselves with their phone charger?  The only folks who get zapped are kids jamming stuff in outlets, and thus why we have tamper resistant outlets.  I've never zapped myself just plugging/unplugging something.  When you go higher voltage, you have to take more steps for safety. 

I have nothing wrong with 230V power, and 3 phase setups, I like them.  I have stuff wired for 240V, and own 240V tools, plenty of us have this.  But you have this false idea that the North American power system is a mess, or bad.  It's not. It's just different, but it works very well.  Europe is going to have issues dealing with going all electric.  Folks can try tuning it out, but gas cars, gas usage in homes is going away. The US is all set for this, most home can already handle going full electric. The infrastructure is there.

I'm trying to find a spec on what wire is used in the walls over there.  Looks like 1.5mm^2 and a 70C temp rating, having found the voltage rating.  That is wire that is about 16gauge US.  We don't use that small, you need 14gauge for just 15A and your temp rating is very low, so you would need even bigger.  The NEC doesn't even have any ratings for 16 gauge and temp ratings that low.  Would like to see a link to something showing the spec for structural wiring over there (gauge, temp, voltage ratings).

 

[Cheese]

Vacuum cleaner, oven, hair dryer, paint stripper, OF2200, washing machine, water kettle; all items that usually are 10A at 230V and are connected to a regular socket here.

That's interesting...our oven/range is 40A/240V and the dryer is 30A/240V.

 

[Coen]

Really? Everything in households is regular 16A Schuko and for the cooktop we have 3-phase, using same cross section wiring for 11,1 kW. Usually 1 per home. Or empty conduit in case the cooktop uses gas.

And even things like computer powersupplies run more efficient on 230V

Everything in a household runs off a 15Amp plug here, just like you have a 16A plug for everything. The other plugs are used for locations you don't have plugs.

So your common electric water kettle is like 1600W? Well that sucks.

Computers convert it to low voltage DC, nothing changes.  The efficiency loss is in the AC to DC conversion.

Correct. But take a look at efficiency graphs of any ATX powersupply and you will see that with 230v the losses are lower.

Take this one for example;

For the big tools like the OF2200, Festool could have given it a 20A plug.

It doesn't? It has a 15A plug? So the US gets a nerfed OF2200? OF1650?

No, it's an OF2200, running full power is very rare, and even if it does, it would be a short period of time. You can pull more than 15As on a circuit for a while before the breaker kicks.  Users of OF2200 don't report issues.

So that's just using stuff beyond it's rating.

The safety thing is taken care of by reduced risk of fire from currents half as big and partly insulated plugpins. Likelyhoid of getting zapped with 230V is enormously reduced. Use savings in copper for full coverage with 30mA RCD's. These stories of people zapping themselves by disconnecting their phonecharger are something US-only with the bare pins. Impossible with the europlug.

And that you guys in de US don't particularly seem to limit energy use is known yeah :+

Reducing currents doesn't change the safety.  The wire is correctly sized, there is no increased chance of fire because more amps are involved.  Increased voltage is the safety issue.  Who is zapping themselves with their phone charger?  The only folks who get zapped are kids jamming stuff in outlets, and thus why we have tamper resistant outlets.  I've never zapped myself just plugging/unplugging something.  When you go higher voltage, you have to take more steps for safety. 

In Europe nobody is zapping themselves. In the US it's very easy because you can reach the metal part of the pins while they are still live.

I have nothing wrong with 230V power, and 3 phase setups, I like them.  I have stuff wired for 240V, and own 240V tools, plenty of us have this.  But you have this false idea that the North American power system is a mess, or bad.  It's not. It's just different, but it works very well.  Europe is going to have issues dealing with going all electric.  Folks can try tuning it out, but gas cars, gas usage in homes is going away. The US is all set for this, most home can already handle going full electric. The infrastructure is there.

The problem is never in the individual home, but the total use in the grid. Transformers have to be upscaled. One of the bigger grid companies here is upgrading medium voltage nets from 10 kV to 20 kV.

I'm trying to find a spec on what wire is used in the walls over there. 

Each country does it different but slowly but steadily we are harmonizing everything. In NL it's all 16A and in case of wire in counduit it has to be at least 2,5mm^2. That is also pretty much the only cross section (beyond 1,5mm^2 between switches and lamps) you will find in a typical Dutch home beyond the circuitboard. In case of cable vs wire in conduit some types of cables are good for 16A in 1,5mm^2.

In BE they do some 20A with 2,5mm^2 and 1,5mm^2 for 16A, but they used to have separate circuits for lighting and outlets.

In Germany they used a lot of cable they plaster into the wall, just like in the UK. A giant mess if you ask me.

Looks like 1.5mm^2 and a 70C temp rating, having found the voltage rating.  That is wire that is about 16gauge US.  We don't use that small, you need 14gauge for just 15A and your temp rating is very low, so you would need even bigger.  The NEC doesn't even have any ratings for 16 gauge and temp ratings that low.  Would like to see a link to something showing the spec for structural wiring over there (gauge, temp, voltage ratings).

The Dutch implementation of the HD-IEC 60364-series (NEN 1010) is not available for free. I do have a copy however. There is a lower limit of 1,5mm^2 for any conductor in fixed home installations.

For PVC insulated wire in conduit, 1,5mm^2, 30 degrees C surrounding air the limit is 17,5A for single-phase circuit (2 wire load). Same but conduit in insulation; 14,5A. In 3-phase circuit this becomes 15 and 13,5
With XLPE insulation you can get higher as the allowed core temperature rises to 90 degrees C. Then it becomes 23, 19, 20, 17

You might want to look at this;
This was made a fellow FoG'er. I myself copied his stuff, but I have two as I also use orange (for net coupled smoke alarms), black with white ribbon (to keep track) and black and gray 2,5mm^2 (for 3-phase circuits; not mandatory; 3x brown also allowed).

Using 4mm^2 for a basic outlet would be a pain. That stuff weighs >50% more and is way way stiffer. No thx.

What is the typical circuit impedance in the USA?

 

[Coen]

Vacuum cleaner, oven, hair dryer, paint stripper, OF2200, washing machine, water kettle; all items that usually are 10A at 230V and are connected to a regular socket here.

That's interesting...our oven/range is 40A/240V and the dryer is 30A/240V.

Some XXL ovens exist here that use twin 16A, but common oven

 

[Cheese]

I solved the issue by putting one of these on both the CT 22 and the MIDI. The hose assembly comes with the higher amperage cord.

[attachimg=1]

 

[DeformedTree]

Far as the plugs, you say it's easy, to shock yourself, yet we don't seam to shock ourselves with them. You have to actively try.

Your wiring sounds complicated.  For houses, they are almost always done with NM-B (aka romex trade name). It's a PVC sleeved cable.  You can do wires in conduit as well, in some areas it's required (Chicago).  We don't have to go thru harmonizing, all of north America, the Caribbean, and parts of south America use the NEC (national electric code) and it's been unchanged on the core parts forever.

Most of house is 14 gauge NM-B.  Lights, plugs, etc.  For circuits required to be 20A, you use 12 gauge.  We also have some limited stuff such as dryers, air conditioners that are general 30A/240V, so run with 10 gauge.  A few things might go 8 gauge if 40A, and items like stoves, ovens, etc will get 6 Gauge (55Amps).  These bigger items are almost always 240V, unless they are dual voltage 240/120V like a dryer.  Same wire for all,  NM-B.    90C rated, 600Volt insulation.  It used to be 60C rated, so sizing wise it is still treated as 60C, even though the wire is now higher rating.  It was found that heat from light bulbs, combined with increase in insulation decades ago made the 60C rating too low, so they increased it, but didn't want folks changing the wire size.  You can't run NM-B in conduit, has to be individual strands, which is the same wire really.  Various rules on conduit fill to prevent over heating.

Your gauge wire and it's temp rating is simply not legal.  Way too unsafe/undersized.  You guys are fearing amps because your wire is undersized.  You would need to be 12 gauge in the US to do 16A with a 60C insulation (but of course 60C insulation is not legal).  Our wires don't get hot when running at full amperage.  The breaker is there to protect the wires, time constants are involved, but like anything, you can go over the rating for periods of time as it will take time for things to heat up, the breaker will kick before that happens.

 

[mino]

Your wiring sounds complicated.

Not really.

For home use, you basically have 2 "gauges" as you would say in the US: (but we use millimeters)
- 1,5 mm2 for the occasional low-current fixed installations (basically lights only)
- 2.5 mm2 for any installations where sockets are installed (as these are 16A by default)

Now, as mentioned, the real technical property of an installation is impedance (to ensure breaker reaction) and temperature generation.

In Europe, we mostly have brick or concrete houses, so heat generation is a moot point: Like totally moot as a wire embedded in concrete or plaster has a very good heat transfer media.

For wood/plaster houses which are rare, there is actually separate, stricter, standards for cabling as the limited heat dissipation in wood buildings is taken into account.

I can see how this can be confusing for a US based person - you standards assume a "wooden house" with all its fire risks while a typical European house would have the installation either embedded in concrete or brick wall, making the standards accommodate that as fire hazard (in the installation itself) is pretty much non-existent and only the endpoints like breaker boxes or sockets are a concern there.

Either way, any qualified electrician is primarily concerned about impedance. And that is more about distance and installation topology than cable "gauge" in practice. Second comes cable cooling/heat generation, but that is usually non-issue outside wooden houses which are rare so have a special standard.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

For the big tools like the OF2200, Festool could have given it a 20A plug.

It doesn't? It has a 15A plug? So the US gets a nerfed OF2200? OF1650?

I don't know about the OF2200, but the old CT22 that we used to have had a 20A plug on it. This made sense to me because you are drawing power for both the CT and the tool plugged into it from the same plug, but is wasn't without it's problems. One of the things that was always supposed to be in the Systainer that stayed with the CT22 was an adaptor so it could be used in places that didn't have 20A outlets. That happened quite a bit.
My new CT26, which is only about a year old, has the much more common 15A plug.

 

[DeformedTree]

Your wiring sounds complicated.

Not really.

For home use, you basically have 2 "gauges" as you would say in the US: (but we use millimeters)
- 1,5 mm2 for the occasional low-current fixed installations (basically lights only)
- 2.5 mm2 for any installations where sockets are installed (as these are 16A by default)

Now, as mentioned, the real technical property of an installation is impedance (to ensure breaker reaction) and temperature generation.

In Europe, we mostly have brick or concrete houses, so heat generation is a moot point: Like totally moot as a wire embedded in concrete or plaster has a very good heat transfer media.

For wood/plaster houses which are rare, there is actually separate, stricter, standards for cabling as the limited heat dissipation in wood buildings is taken into account.

I can see how this can be confusing for a US based person - you standards assume a "wooden house" with all its fire risks while a typical European house would have the installation either embedded in concrete or brick wall, making the standards accommodate that as fire hazard (in the installation itself) is pretty much non-existent and only the endpoints like breaker boxes or sockets are a concern there.

Either way, any qualified electrician is primarily concerned about impedance. And that is more about distance and installation topology than cable "gauge" in practice. Second comes cable cooling/heat generation, but that is usually non-issue outside wooden houses which are rare so have a special standard.

Our electrical code assumes nothing about the construction of the house.  Our electrical code concerns the wiring.  Sizing is based on the wire, it's insulation.  We use the same code for a small basic house, garden shed as we do in a sky scrapper, an industrial plant, bomb shelter, etc. It's all NEC.  Generally the residential building code cuts out stuff that doesn't apply to a house, but it's all the same. Most homes don't need to be concerned with explosion proof construction, gigawatts of power transmission, etc. 

Most residential is prescriptive, thus there is a clear simple path for stuff, such as particular gauges of a particular type of wire for various applications.  Just like framing, plumbing, etc in code.  So folks don't have to have an engineer review the design, everyone knows it works.  But you can deviate if you want, and then you get into endless tables for all types of wire made, the ampacities for different temperature ratings, when you can use what, de-rates for different applications, so on and so forth.

It's illegal to embed a wire in plaster/concrete/etc.  It must be protected in conduit if in masonry material like that.  Wiring is either in conduit, or it's not. For electrical power transmission, NM-B, UF (a direct burial in dirt spec), and some SE (service entry) cable is design to be run not within conduit. Everything else is in conduit, the sizing doesn't care what is around the conduit (free air, dirt, concrete, fruit cake). Most residential wiring is not in conduit. Other than the Chicago thing, residential only tends to start going conduit in places like apartment buildings, high rises, etc. You can have a big wire in a big conduit, moving just a few amps, and the conduit is buried in the ground (55F), you can't just say "it's fine, the ground is cold".

We don't look at impedance, there is no point.  We don't size our stuff so dangerously. If you have a bad connection, you will notice the lights dim, voltage drops, etc.  Breakers will kick.  You are either pulling too many amps for the breaker or you're not. It doesn't care what is down stream of it. It's the "weak link" not the wire.

There is only 1 topology, we don't have ring bus's or any of those problematic issues. We have branch circuits, a limited number of items on each circuit.  Length of a wire run is almost never an issue. You can only get so far from a panel in a house, and even houses with one circuit wrapping around the house several times, you don't see issues.  Wires are sized to handled the amps of the circuit and stay within the temperature limits of the wire. Breakers are sized to protect the wire. If someone has some concern due to distance, they might bump up the size. As mentioned, some folks will just wire everything with 12gauge both for a level of simplicity and extra margin, you can always have a smaller breaker.  Hard to access wires later, so often best to install bigger than needed, and then just install a smaller breaker.  Common for ranges, ovens, etc. Run 6 gauge so you could support 50-60A, but if someone installs a unit that only needs a 40A breaker, it just means more margin. The cost difference is pretty minimal verses the headaches later.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I remember back before polarized plugs in the house where I grew up. The house I live in now had them too until a major remodel in '06.
I still have an old 4 prong phone socket in the kitchen, but it hasn't worked for years.

 

[Bob D.]

"So your common electric water kettle is like 1600W?"

Yours probably is too.

Watts is watts

1600W/120V = 13.3A
1600W/240V = 6.66A

Doesn't use any more power (watts) than a 240v kettle.

One of the reasons for the difference in secondary voltages is that when the power distribution system was first developed here by Westinghouse and Tesla much of the country was still building out and space for the necessary equipment was incorporated into new construction and communities. In Europe most places were already built up and electric systems were added to existing homes and other structures. Your cities, at least what I have seen in many of them, appear to be more tightly packed, much higher population density, leaving little room for transmission and distribution equipment. A higher primary/secondary voltage helps overcome this because the power can be pushed much further down the wire from the last transformer. In NA where there was plenty of room to grow this was not necessary. That and migrating over from Edisons' inadequate DC system which was trying to scratch out a start in New York and New Jersey might have something to do with it too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents

The utility that is now ConEd in New York was probably the first electric utility in the World, but surely in North America.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Edison

Also, in NA homes were/are more widely spread out. Running high secondary lines of 4 or 12KV on the lines lets power travel further with less loss. Sending power over great distances requires even higher voltage. We (NA) run some 500KV or even greater voltage lines that send power across multiple states. In the NA some of the 'local' RTOs cover areas almost as large as Europe. The interconnected utilities send power to each other as needed to cover local peak demands, outages, and units that are taken off line for maintenance. Sometimes that power 'travels' 500 miles or more. The PJM Interconnection where I live covers 13 states and Washington DC.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJM_Interconnection .

What's an RTO? -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_transmission_organization_(North_America)

Out west in middle America power generation facilities are widely spread out. The European distribution system would not work as well there plus it costs more to build out.

You might find this comparison of the two systems interesting:
https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/north-american-versus-european-distribution-systems

 

[DeformedTree]

Some good points Bob.

Most of US housing stock is post electrification.  The rural areas didn't get power till FDR.  A good simple wiki page on it REA  .  You can see there that even in those early days, the basics were locked in.  a 60A panel (still common, but now 100A min), a big plug for the range 60A, 20A for kitchen plugs, 15A for lights.  For the 1930s, this was pretty good and pretty forward looking.  We still wire up 60A plug for range/oven/cooktop, still have 20A plugs for kitchen, still do lights at 15A.  We just found more stuff to add over time, thus 200A service being the norm now.

Each house having a transformer is normal once you leave town.  The other part is no gas service, these areas never had it, never will. A durable, safe, reliable electrical system has always been the priority.  And as you mention, we were not trying to retrofit a castle, or a 400 year old building.

No one wants a sensitive, touchy electrical system. It's to be simple, and easy for anyone to work on. A farmer isn't going to call an electrician.  This is where items like arc fault breakers got a bad rap, some early ones had some issues, people wanted no part of them.

Safe and Simple, best way to do that is big wires, good insulation on them, low voltages.

 

[DeformedTree]

On the subject of running the OF2200 on a 15A circuit.

2200/120 = 18.33A,  yes this is more than 15.  But looking at trip curve for a pretty typical breaker found in the US, at 18.33A, it will take about 3-4minutes to kick the breaker.  This matches my experience with having too much stuff plugged in a circuit at once, like a microwave plus something else. 

I doubt many people will ever find themselves running and OF2200 at full power for over 4 minutes straight.  In a CMS configuration, someone might, and that very well is why Festool didn't want folks doing that combination.

You won't over heat the wire in that time frame. The ampacity for 14gauge wire is much higher than that, it's a limit of the insulation on it. The 90C insulation means it could handle 25A, so this is never remotely approached. If you did start pulling those amps, the breaker would kick in less than a minute.

Far as kettles, we just heat water with microwaves.

 

[Coen]

Far as the plugs, you say it's easy, to shock yourself, yet we don't seam to shock ourselves with them. You have to actively try.

All the cases it does happen it's someone with a US plug, not with a Europlug.

Your wiring sounds complicated. 

Then you didn't listen well. The whole house here is wired with exactly 4 types of wire;
Blue 2,5mm^2 (Neutral)
Brown 2,5mm^2 (Phase)
Yellow/Green 2,5mm^2 (Earth)
Black 1,5mm^2 (in between switches and individual ligts)

And since I rewired it also black+white stripe (to keep track of what is what with circuits that halve lamps that can be switched from 2-3 spots) and orange for the coupled smoke detectors. In the kitchen is an outlet for 3-phase 16A (11,1 kW); no different gauges needed.

For houses, they are almost always done with NM-B (aka romex trade name). It's a PVC sleeved cable.  You can do wires in conduit as well, in some areas it's required (Chicago).  We don't have to go thru harmonizing, all of north America, the Caribbean, and parts of south America use the NEC (national electric code) and it's been unchanged on the core parts forever.

"Don't have to"... lol it's a mess. You have a whole list of different outlets lol, a list of different gauges of wiring...

Most of house is 14 gauge NM-B.  Lights, plugs, etc.  For circuits required to be 20A, you use 12 gauge.  We also have some limited stuff such as dryers, air conditioners that are general 30A/240V, so run with 10 gauge. 

So three different gauges where we use ONE.

A few things might go 8 gauge if 40A,

Oh, so four different gauges.

and items like stoves, ovens, etc will get 6 Gauge (55Amps). 

Oh, five. :O. So electricians on service call have a gigantic amount of different stuff in their van, which then has to be supersized, causing more costs for everyone.

These bigger items are almost always 240V, unless they are dual voltage 240/120V like a dryer.  Same wire for all,  NM-B.    90C rated, 600Volt insulation.  It used to be 60C rated, so sizing wise it is still treated as 60C, even though the wire is now higher rating.  It was found that heat from light bulbs, combined with increase in insulation decades ago made the 60C rating too low, so they increased it, but didn't want folks changing the wire size.  You can't run NM-B in conduit, has to be individual strands, which is the same wire really.  Various rules on conduit fill to prevent over heating.

Conduit fill rate is usually about mechanical stresses during installation.

Your gauge wire and it's temp rating is simply not legal.  Way too unsafe/undersized. 

Lol no.

You guys are fearing amps because your wire is undersized. 

Lol it's not.

You would need to be 12 gauge in the US to do 16A with a 60C insulation (but of course 60C insulation is not legal). Our wires don't get hot when running at full amperage. 

Probably because your voltage drop is much worse. Losing 2V on a 230V circuit is only about 1% where on 110V circuit it would be 2%. If you want to size for the same percentage loss, you would have to increase cross section four times with 110V vs 230V.

Or you just use inferior stuff with lower temp rating, that is possible too. Otherwise it makes no sense to require 4mm^2 with 16A.

Your wiring sounds complicated.

Not really.

For home use, you basically have 2 "gauges" as you would say in the US: (but we use millimeters)
- 1,5 mm2 for the occasional low-current fixed installations (basically lights only)
- 2.5 mm2 for any installations where sockets are installed (as these are 16A by default)

Now, as mentioned, the real technical property of an installation is impedance (to ensure breaker reaction) and temperature generation.

In Europe, we mostly have brick or concrete houses, so heat generation is a moot point: Like totally moot as a wire embedded in concrete or plaster has a very good heat transfer media.

For wood/plaster houses which are rare, there is actually separate, stricter, standards for cabling as the limited heat dissipation in wood buildings is taken into account.

I can see how this can be confusing for a US based person - you standards assume a "wooden house" with all its fire risks while a typical European house would have the installation either embedded in concrete or brick wall, making the standards accommodate that as fire hazard (in the installation itself) is pretty much non-existent and only the endpoints like breaker boxes or sockets are a concern there.

Either way, any qualified electrician is primarily concerned about impedance. And that is more about distance and installation topology than cable "gauge" in practice. Second comes cable cooling/heat generation, but that is usually non-issue outside wooden houses which are rare so have a special standard.

Our electrical code assumes nothing about the construction of the house.  Our electrical code concerns the wiring.  Sizing is based on the wire, it's insulation.  We use the same code for a small basic house, garden shed as we do in a sky scrapper, an industrial plant, bomb shelter, etc. It's all NEC.  Generally the residential building code cuts out stuff that doesn't apply to a house, but it's all the same. Most homes don't need to be concerned with explosion proof construction, gigawatts of power transmission, etc. 

We have one norm that covers all, so no difference there.

Most residential is prescriptive, thus there is a clear simple path for stuff, such as particular gauges of a particular type of wire for various applications.  Just like framing, plumbing, etc in code.  So folks don't have to have an engineer review the design, everyone knows it works.  But you can deviate if you want, and then you get into endless tables for all types of wire made, the ampacities for different temperature ratings, when you can use what, de-rates for different applications, so on and so forth.

We have the same. There is the norm, that rules all, and there is simplified version based on that which is actually a bit more readable that covers the 99%.

It's illegal to embed a wire in plaster/concrete/etc. 

Same here. Where; wire is something different than cable.

It must be protected in conduit if in masonry material like that.  Wiring is either in conduit, or it's not. For electrical power transmission, NM-B, UF (a direct burial in dirt spec), and some SE (service entry) cable is design to be run not within conduit. Everything else is in conduit, the sizing doesn't care what is around the conduit (free air, dirt, concrete, fruit cake). Most residential wiring is not in conduit. Other than the Chicago thing, residential only tends to start going conduit in places like apartment buildings, high rises, etc. You can have a big wire in a big conduit, moving just a few amps, and the conduit is buried in the ground (55F), you can't just say "it's fine, the ground is cold".

And not using conduit means a big PITA when something breaks down. Sadly, the NL norm was weakened to be more in line with Ze Germans to allow for cable in plaster...

We don't look at impedance, there is no point.  We don't size our stuff so dangerously. If you have a bad connection, you will notice the lights dim, voltage drops, etc.  Breakers will kick.  You are either pulling too many amps for the breaker or you're not. It doesn't care what is down stream of it. It's the "weak link" not the wire.

Not looking at impedance is just dumb. At any point in the circuit you must be able to achieve a shortcircuit current that exceeds the upper limit of where the magnetic trip of the breaker engages.

There is only 1 topology, we don't have ring bus's or any of those problematic issues.

Rings is something crazy from the Brits. I don't think anyone else uses that.

We have branch circuits, a limited number of items on each circuit.  Length of a wire run is almost never an issue. You can only get so far from a panel in a house, and even houses with one circuit wrapping around the house several times, you don't see issues.  Wires are sized to handled the amps of the circuit and stay within the temperature limits of the wire. Breakers are sized to protect the wire. If someone has some concern due to distance, they might bump up the size. As mentioned, some folks will just wire everything with 12gauge both for a level of simplicity and extra margin, you can always have a smaller breaker. 

Yeah, because drops become a way bigger issue with 110V

Hard to access wires later, so often best to install bigger than needed, and then just install a smaller breaker.  Common for ranges, ovens, etc. Run 6 gauge so you could support 50-60A, but if someone installs a unit that only needs a 40A breaker, it just means more margin. The cost difference is pretty minimal verses the headaches later.

Access to wiring becomes an issue if you don't use conduit. Good thing in NL it's 99% conduit. Drill a hole in the wrong place? > Pull wires out of conduit, replace. All done in 5 minutes, no need to cut open the wall.

 

[Coen]

"So your common electric water kettle is like 1600W?"

Yours probably is too.

No Bob. I already said the common water kettle here is 2200W. 3000W ones are also available, but the more common 2200W assures it's compatible with ancient 10A circuits too.

Watts is watts

1600W/120V = 13.3A
1600W/240V = 6.66A
Doesn't use any more power (watts) than a 240v kettle.

2200/110 = 20A... RIP compatibility with 15A socket.
2200/230 = 9,6A... works on any circuit, even combined with the toaster on a regular 16A circuit.

One of the reasons for the difference in secondary voltages is that when the power distribution system was first developed here by Westinghouse and Tesla much of the country was still building out and space for the necessary equipment was incorporated into new construction and communities. In Europe most places were already built up and electric systems were added to existing homes and other structures. Your cities, at least what I have seen in many of them, appear to be more tightly packed, much higher population density, leaving little room for transmission and distribution equipment. A higher primary/secondary voltage helps overcome this because the power can be pushed much further down the wire from the last transformer. In NA where there was plenty of room to grow this was not necessary. That and migrating over from Edisons' inadequate DC system which was trying to scratch out a start in New York and New Jersey might have something to do with it too.

With 230V and same cable going to houses you simply need less transformers. I don't know where you visited, but in NL the infra is pretty invisible since about everything

 

[semenza]

Soooo, yeeaahh, .......................................  Festool has two different size Plug-It cords in the US.  [blink]

Seth

 

[DeformedTree]

Coen,  you are confusing using the right solution, verses trying to bend everything around using 1 thing.  Trying to find ways to make everything work on one gauge wire is down right silly and impractical.  Same for the sockets.  We could do as you do there. We could get rid of our high current receptacles and hardwire things in, but that would be a step backwards.  We could run multiple parallel wires to get the same power to a location without changing wire size, but that's wasteful verses just using the correct size wire.  We do have some instances were this is done.  Some items with multiple heating elements do this, such as tankless water heaters, they might have 2-3 parallel circuits. Often this is because they are imported products from Europe, so it's just the 3phase design repurposed. Electric heating in HVAC might do similar as well. Sure, we could probably get to 1 wire size, but we don't want to run 6awg for everything.

We don't do as you keep describing since again, it's unsafe, and there is no reason to. Just run the correct size wire. Stop limiting yourself by trying to make everything work back to one thing.

Our wiring isn't hard at all.  You are imagining problems that don't exist.  We don't have voltage drop issues. We run 240V power to houses, you run 230V power to houses.  In the run lengths within a home that are 110V, the voltage drop will not be noticed, also we run properly sized wire.  Your wires are too small.

Maybe you have different breakers than us.  We use Magnetic-Thermal breakers.  You either pull too many amps for too long to trigger it thermal, or you have a short/inrush that trips the magnetic.  We have Arc fault breakers that detect arcs and trip them too.  We don't test for impedance because it doesn't change if the breaker will trip or not.  Any such reliance is flawed. You have just made the system to complicated and sensitive, the impedance isn't going to be static anyway.

Some things in Europe are done well and could be said better than N.A. .  Electrical isn't one of them. You will never get the engineers, safety official, etc that create NEC code to head in the direction of Europe. 

The elements of what you have over there, exist here, they just aren't commonly used for various reasons.  But we aren't going to go lowering temperature ratings on wires, reducing the size of wires, running them at the limits of their capacities. 3 Phase distribution to homes is neat, and we have such systems, they just aren't widespread as there isn't as big of a benefit as some folks think.

We use the right solutions for the problem. Safety rules all in US electrical.  Saving a few bucks using smaller wires, yet increasing the fire risk is not something that will happen.  Running higher voltages, thus needing even more precautions when it comes to insulation/isolation, verses just pulling some more amps thru a bigger wire is not a change that will happen.

Thru this thread, going back to the 2 cord sizes, it goes back to there being no reason for the smaller gauge cord, was festool just trying to get to a smaller wire size because they thought that was better?  Or thoughts on the Kapex saga with saws burning up.