Hello. which side of a 220 plug is being used? My main breaker gets hotter on one side when acs and dryer are running to the extent that it burned out the fuse.
I have three phase, so how do i know which end of the 220v wire to place on the free fuse side?
I am assuming one side of a 220 plug carries more load than the other based on this heating up observation, maybe I am wrong.
virtually yours
Virtually Yours
You should stop playing with electricity.
Both legs of a 220v circuit carry equal load.
Are you sure you have 3phase power? Where are you located?
On a normal American electrical setup, with 240V service split into 2 120V legs, it is quite possible for one side of the service to be overloaded & heat up. This happens when more electrical load is being used on one side of the service than the other.
Each 120V outlet, for example, will be connected to one side of the service. If it happens that too many of the items in use at one time happen to be connected to the same side of the service, the total electrical load from them may be enough to blow the fuse on that side of the service. It’s called an unbalanced load. Individual circuits won’t blow, because they are below their Amp rating, but the total of all of them adds up to more than the main fuse can handle, so it blows. (Like is should; that’s what it’s for.) This can be fixed by moving circuits around so the ones in use are not all on the same side, or by just plugging things into different outlets. But this is pretty rare in a properly wired house.
Also, the heaviest electrical loads (Stoves, dryers, heaters) are 240V appliances, and are directly wired to both sides of the service, so will never cause an unbalanced load.
And I agree with the above post; you don’t sound like you know enough about wiring to be working on it.
Call a qualified electrician. It costs money, but is a lot cheaper than a house fire.
I’m an electrical engineer with about three decades of experience, and I have to say that quite a lot in the OP makes no sense at all to me.
There are some 240 (220, whatever you want to call it) appliances that will run some of the controls off of 120 and therefore won’t load both lines equally, but in general, most 240 appliances will have the same current in both wires. That’s kinda how it works. If the device only uses 240, the current going out one wire has to equal the current coming back in through the other wire (minor nit - technically in AC the current goes out through one wire and back through the other then switches direction, 50 or 60 times per second depending on where you are in the world). The only way you can’t have the currents equal is if you also have a neutral wire that carries current and part of the device uses 120.
If you have an imbalanced load on your main breakers, it is more likely that the imbalance is in the 120 circuits and not the 240 loads.
What are you calling a “free fuse side”? Explain in more detail, please.
What makes you think that you have three phase power? And what exactly are you calling “three phase power”? Residential electrical service is almost always a single split phase. You get 240 from one line to the other, and 120 from either line to neutral. Significantly less common is getting two phases from a three phase system. In this case, the line to neutral voltage is still 120, but the line to line voltage is only 208. True three phase power is pretty much unheard of in residential service, but is common in businesses and apartment buildings and such, basically where more power is needed. In a three phase system, you’ll have three main breakers (or fuses), and again, the 120 circuits will be from any of the three lines to neutral, and the 208 circuits will be from any two lines. Since you say “one side” of your main breaker, I’m assuming that you have a double-pole main breaker and either have a single split phase or you have two lines from a three-phase system, which for all practical purposes you treat as if it were a single split phase (it’s just that your 240 volts is low).
In any case, your 240/208/whatever circuits will be on a double-pole breaker. If you have old-fashioned fuses, you should have a fuse for each line. You shouldn’t be asking which line gets the fuse.
And to echo previous posts, based solely on what you posted here, my professional advice to you is DO NOT TOUCH A F***ING THING. Call a professional.
ETA: And call a professional SOON. If you have things heating up, I suspect you have a poor connection somewhere, which worst case can burn down your house and kill people.
What country are you in? If USA, then your house is wired with split-phase electric power. There will be three wires coming into your house from the transformer outside: leg A, leg B, and ground. Leg A is at 110V with respect to the ground wire, and so is leg B. Want to wire up a 110V circuit in your house? A 110V breaker connects to leg A or leg B, but not both; the other flat slot of the outlet is the “common” return line (the round pin is for ground/safety purposes). For 220, the important thing is that the AC on leg A and leg B are 180 degrees out of phase with respect to each other, so one measures at 220V relative to the other. Want to wire up a 220V circuit? A 220V breaker (typically used for central air conditioning, electric ovens/stoves, and electric dryers) connects to both leg A and leg B. Unless something is wrong, the current to/from both legs should be pretty much the same for any single appliance.
A breaker panel is designed so that when you install two 110V breakers next to each other, one connects with leg A and the other connects with leg B. That way when you install a whole bunch of 110V breakers in a row, about half get their juice from leg A and the other half get their juice from leg B. If you’ve done something weird like skipping spaces in your breaker panel, then it’s possible you could be drawing a lot of power from one leg and little/none from the other. But for a 220V appliance, that’s a non-issue.
Not sure what “fuse” you’re referring to, with regard to the main breaker. A breaker by definition does not employ a fuse.
If you’re living in a residence in the USA, then it would be almost unheard of to have three-phase power in a residential setting. Occasionally you’ll find a hobbyist who buys a piece of industrial machinery (lathe, mill, etc.) that requires three-phase power; such a person then usually also buys a 3-phase inverter, which takes 220V single-phase and converts it to three-phase. For a long time this was just a 220V single-phase motor powering a three-phase alternator, but these days you can buy solid-state inverters. Anyway, if you have no idea what all this means, then it’s just about certain you don’t have three-phase power.
In any event, based on your comments, I’d recommend you not mess with this yourself: hire a licensed, qualified electrician, and pay him for what he knows.
ninja’d by ECG.
If something you are doing is causing a fuse to blow, then stop doing that. If something routine like just running the dryer is causing a fuse to blow, then call an electrician, and get all of your wiring in your house upgraded. Do not just try to bypass the fuse. A fuse burning out is a little bit inconvenient. Your house burning down is a lot inconvenient.
There are three lines coming to three 100 amp fuses before it goes to the meter. then three fuses after the meter then to the panel.
The free fuse side is the fuse that has virtually nothing on it, just one bedroom outlet.
You should retain the services of an electrician immediately.
What country are you in?
100 amp service with fuses?
bahamas
yup, three of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HENLEY-FUSE-CARRIER-CUTOUT-100amp-Series-7-/132254191732
That is some extremely poor load balancing. Why bother having three phase if you only load two of the phases?
You need to get a professional electrician to rebalance the loads so that they are properly distributed over all three phases. Maybe they were trying to load balance the transformer or something. Someone with a good knowledge of electrical wiring needs to look at the entire picture here and figure out what is going on.
I agree, some of the breakers need to be moved over to the free fuse.
thanks all.
virtually yours
Virtually Yours
Worth repeating!!!