ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades "Esoteric" countries and their wiring practices?

Cn_HK,

I'll echo Djk. Looks like a neat setup. The RCD in the "old" chinese consumer unit is a nice surprise. Homes with an RCD and grounded sockets throughout were rare in Sweden ten years ago.

Sven,
is that Korean outlet grounded or ungrounded? Those terminals probably work better on 240V than on 120V as the current will in most cases be lower. (Pretty rare to load it to more than 10A)

C-H it is ungrounded.

Korean wiring doesn't use grounds or neutrals.

It is 220 volts across hot & hot

I had a phone conversation today with a coworker who is in China supervising installations of machines in a new factory. He complained that my webpage was misleading - plugs aren't very often used. "They just stick the wires in the outlet. I even saw a guy who held them in place with a screwdriver..."

Rather than a consistent colour coding, which you would expect from new work done at the same time, the Chinese sparkies use red, blue, yellow and green indiscriminately for the phases. Earth is (supposed to be) black according to the locals. (Didn't the Russian use that?) Nevertheless, they were better sparkies than plumbers...

On the upside, the booze is cheap. :-)

China is so big, which city your coworker worked in ? Different parts of China had different "standand". Poorer area had many "invention" For example:
1)Colour of wire is not important. L,N,E-SAME colour.
2)Use the cheapest wire- Al wire
These so called "sparkies" learned the above "skills " in their hometown.
When they rushed to big cities, they can't compete with liscensed local sparkies's quality work, only way to "survive" in the market is lower their wage.
"You got what you paid for" always apply to everything in China, from goods to services NOTHING had expection. "Pay more" got "better quality".

Traditionlly delta area of Guangdong Province uses bayonet light bulb, ripped off BS546 plug & British colour code (L-Red N-Black) for domestic wiring. Even today, T&E still manufactured in British colour (L-Red N-Black)
CCC A034958 DONGGUAN VENUS ELECTRIC WIRE

CO. LTD BVVB 300/500V PVC CABLE V094


[This message has been edited by Cn_HK (edited 10-24-2004).]

Rather interesting that both yellow and green are typically used for phases.

If you look at most European countries, it seems that when they adopted green/yellow for earth they also specified that neither plain yellow nor plain green should continue to be used for any other function (the U.K. being an exception with a yellow B-phase).

I'm not sure about allowing dark blue as a phase when light blue is neutral either. Seems ther might be room for a little confusion there.

Cn_Hk, it is nice to see that you are still on the forum! I often wonder what happens to people who have posted one or two times.

It isn't one of the big, well known cities and I don't doubt that Beijing or Shanghai would have been different and Hong Kong very different. Nor do I doubt that ten years from now, they will be doing things to much stricter standards even in the small cities. As I understand it these guys aren't paid bad and I suspect that the company in charge simply didn't hire the best people for the job. The world is full of people who take on jobs they don't fully master.

Cn_HK,
Great to see you back!.
Thanks for the great pics, I've always wondered what sort of gear you guys used in Hong Kong.

Cox Bros Electrical Co (Traditional Chinese) *Group 25= URL The Pics & Specs would draw the picture in your mind. Translate via SYSTRAN when necessary (Not recommend,horrible result)

[This message has been edited by Cn_HK (edited 10-25-2004).]

Cn_HK, will Hong Kong change its wiring colours to match the new IEE regs? I can't see why it should, as it's nowhere near Europe and there will be no trade benefit, but you never know.

Sven, looking back at your list, information about these countries have surfaced one by one in this forum since you wrote it almost two years ago. Some places like Liberia remain complete unknowns, though.

[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 10-26-2004).]

Doesn't Liberia follow U.S. practice in many respects? It certainly seems to be the only 60Hz country in Africa, and according to all sources the only one using NEMA plugs.