ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Wiring Systems in IRAQ

What's this?

http://mssparky.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/fluke.jpg

(This picture came courtesy of mssparky.com)

This is a typical central European tap/faucet, it is one hand controlled and allows to adjust water temperature quite accurately. I missed them a lot on the Isles where you usually have to fill the basin to have an acceptable water temperature.

Given the brand of the soap and the spelling on the bottle, I'd guess it's more likely to be in the US....

The questions I'd ask are what's the other probe connected to, and where is the 180v coming from!

Edited to add (Having looked at a bit more stuff on that website, it's actually Iraq)

What I think (hope?) we're seeing is a sink in a trailer (construction looks consistant with that) and an AC potential between the air conditioning unit receptacle and the water from the faucet. If it's been heavily treated, it would be a fair to middling conductor of elecricity. (Everyone drinks bottled water, btw, tap water is just for washing and flushing.)

I sincerely hope the faucet isn't the energized component in this circuit... If they're using european 400V power, that's 230V phase-to-ground and this is consistant with phase-to-ground, and the faucet as ground. But if they're using 120/208V 60Hz (or 50Hz) american power, 180V at this faucet would mean that it's either energized, or the neutral is floating and one of the phases has a ground fault.

Joe, that is what is known as Hot Water.

Steve,
I've turned up to I don't know how many Faults calls where taps (faucets) have been live, with respect to earth.

This can be caused by one of two things, the first and most serious is an electrical worker transposing the Mains wires at the point of intake, from the service.

The other option is where the earth conductor has broken and the pipe-work of the house takes the current, this can give incidental voltages, over the pipework, if not bonded properly.

"transposing the Mains wires at the point of intake"

Reminds me when some dude used the grounded (neutral)conductor to supply a phase in a Bronx, NY candy store, because that phase was grounded to the system somewhere, everything in the store was reversed polarity at the receptacles, for examples.

Trumpy, have you ever worked on systems here in the USA?

Please descrive the Wye systems used in your area.

I think(!) the NZ system is similar to those used in most European countries - 230/400V wye with grounded center point. The center is always grounded at the transformer, sometimes also locally (as per the ground-neutral bond in US main panels though not necessarily at that specific location), essentially making the difference between TT system (neutral not bonded locally) and TN (neutral bonded locally in modern systems). Several countries use different terms for TN systems like MEN (multiple earthed neutral) or PME (protective multiple earthing).

You can also find old systems where the neutral is not bonded locally but all metal surfaces are bonded to the neutral (PEN) bus bar. In this case transposing the phase and neutral would not be noticed in a single phase supply but cause all bonded surfaces to become hot. This occasionally happens in Germany when morons start working on older systems, particularly systems with a neutral-ground bond in each receptacle box and no color coding on the wires at all.

I agree though, the 180V to the water are likely a phase to ground voltage using the water as a (poor) ground.

Possibly just 2 resistances in series:
Voltmeter and poor ('cause water is a bad conductor) ground.

But is that picture a surprise?

This is very embarrassing!

Problems with little kids playing around, how many fires did they say!

Danger!