This is my second article about 110 AC and 220 Single Phase like you would have in your home if you are on the grid

This is the first article I wrote mostly about safety and not wearing gold or silver or anything metal so you don't die or have a finger burnt off while doing electrical work in your home or apartment

 Understanding 110 AC and 220 Single phase: So far ...

Today I will write more about my experiences doing electrical work with my Electrical Contractor father from about age 10 to 17 and then for about a year when I was 21 and in between majors in college. I had before I was 21 gone to college to study computer data processing at Glendale College from 1966 to 1968 which is a community college in the town where I mostly grew up from 1956 to 1969 when I was 21 and left and lived other places after that. (mostly in California but also in Hawaii). So, by the time I was 20 I was proficient at programming (mostly IBM computers then) with COBOL and FORTRAN. Cobol is a business language and Fortran is better for Scientific Calculations like sending Rockets into space and stuff like this. Both Languages were so good and so fast that they are still used today by the way among people who want really fast results to their programs. I also learned to do keypunch which how you entered your programs into the computer in this era 1966 onward. The first home computer I ever owned was a TRS-80 from Radio Shack I bought for 800 dollars in 1978 and had only 4k memory and when you shut it off you had to save your programs in the Basic Language on a Tape Cassette then. Since my son was 4 years old I began teaching him to program his own video games in the Basic language. He still likes building his own home computers (desktops) today. He says building laptops is just too much trouble without a computer factory to actually build from scratch. 

Though I never attempted to build a computer like my son sort of like his personal Ferrari computer for gaming and the like I always liked learning computer languages and so now I have learned Fortran, Cobol, Basic and HTML languages. Sometimes I still use HTML for creating my Links pages. In fact, I'm also likely going to work on my next links page some today which gives you the most read articles at this site in the last 7 days or so.

Begin electrical stuff:

First  number 12 wires are usually for general purpose things in your home like plug outlets that you plug your toasters and all other appliances into.

Number 14 wires are usually for switch legs regarding primarily or secondary switches. For example, in my house I have switches that are two or more places where you can turn lights on or off from 2 or more places depending upon what direction you are coming into a room so you don't fall down trying to get to a light switch before you get the light on.

Power coming into the house or apartment:

First of all, most electrical transmission lines are 1000 volts or above either on a telephone pole or underground depending upon your area. You should NEVER NEVER NEVER touch a live 1000 foot volt line or else you are going to die if you touch the metal. So, in a storm when trees knock these things down stay away from them so you don't die. I only know one person who survived being hit with a 1000 volt bare line and he was about 15 or 17 then and when he touched it it made his body jump about 25 feet and knocked him unconscious. So, he is the single ONLY person I ever met who survived a jolt from a 1000 volt bare line.

Though you might see with the really big long distance line like across states or counties. You need really high AC voltages to prevent extreme line drops in voltage. You cannot successfully transmit DC power across distances which is why when Nicola Tesla invented AC power and fluorescent light bulbs and Tesla Coils it was such a breakthrough for all humanity.

Here is what the high tension lines transmit at across counties and states from Google AI:

AC electricity is transmitted over long distances at voltages ranging from 155,000 to 765,000 volts. These high voltages are used to minimize energy loss during transmission. The voltage is typically stepped up at the power station to these high levels and then stepped down at the destination for use. 

end partial quote.

 

So, depending upon the need of that locality transmissions of power ranging from 155,000 to 765,000 volts across hundreds or thousands of miles.

 

 Then when the power gets to a city or locality the power goes into a substation which reduces the power down to around 1000 volts for transmission around a locality or city area.

 

Then it gets to within a block of where you live and it is reduced again down to 220 volts single phase usually for homes and apartments through a transformer you usually see up on a telephone pole. Sometimes in lightning strikes or fires or shorts transformers explode sort of like a hand grenade sending metal and parts everywhere in all directions. So, when this happens if you are too close to a transformer you could die or be injured.

 

The folowing pictures are the types of transformers you might see on your telephone poles that reduce the voltage down from 1000 volts to 220 volts single phase.

 

Next 3 wires large ones come to your home into your main electrical panel one is a neutral that is white or painted white by the electrician and two are black. These are really big wires by the way and don't touch them ever unless you are actually a well trained electrician wearing  rubber gauntlets to protect you from death. (a gauntlet is a glove that usually comes up to your elbows.) made  of rubber (rubber would be the best insulator not leather to avoid harm to your body or dying.)

 

The way you get 110 volts is you take only one of the two black wires and the white neutral and this gives you 110 volts. If you want 220 volts for a washer or electric stove or a hot tub outside (jacuzzi) then you take both black wires and the neutral for that. But, most things in the house are just going to blow up if you put 220 into them and start a fire so don't do that.

 

All your kitchen appliances and TVs and things like that are all 110 volts only and if you put 220 volts through them you could kill yourself or your family when these things blow up or short out. So, never use 220 when you only need 110 or people might die.

 

Also, number 12 wires cannot safely carry 220 volts without melting and 14 wires are smaller and so are even worse. You need much larger wires to carry 220 volts in the first place and the smaller the number designation the bigger the wire.

 

I think that's all I can write about this for now because I've got some work to do.

2,300+ Utility Pole Transformer Stock Photos, Pictures ...

iStock

2,300+ Utility Pole Transformer Stock Photos, Pictures ...

iStock