Balanced Power

Hopefully somebody will come along to clean up my post and verbiage here.

From what I think I know, in order to obtain say a 20 amp 240volt (balanced power) circuit, you would need a 20 amp dual-circuit breaker installed at the service panel.

Of course, this is assuming you have one slot available on both phases/legs of the service panel. One directly across from the other.

Secondly, you would need 10/2 gauage wiring. The black or hot lead is connected to one side of the dual circuit breaker and the white or neutral is connected to the other side of the dual circuit breaker.

There's a number of safety issues involved but I believe that's it in a nutshell. Grounding is optional but recommended.

And of course you must ensure your equipment is wired for 240 volts. If you are looking for 120 volt balanced power, then I believe there's some kind of down converter required to bring the 120 + 120 volts down to 60 + 60 volts.

-IMO

Ed, any time you have a circuit where the opposing phases cancel each other is also known as balanced power. Whether it be +60 and -60 or +120 and -120.

To the best of my knowledge anyway.

I've read many of the papers found on Equi=Tech's website some time ago. I believe those papers will substantiate my statements.

And Ed, please substitute amplifier for clothes dryer. It helps add credibility to my statements in my previous posting.

-IMO

Karls, what would be the purpose of an isolation transformer? Could you be thinking of a down converter?

A down converter would be required if somebody has set up a 230 volt circuit/line (balanced power) at the service panel with the intension of using that ciruit with 115 volt components.

-IMO

For those that like to read, I've attached a url from Equi=Tech's website along with one paragraph:

http://www.equitech.com/articles/bpng.html.

Tphalieros, perhaps this is what your original inquiry was about. The defining paragraph states:

"Balanced AC is simply 120 Volts that has been split evenly across two AC mains. One phase is +60V while the other is -60V. The mains are always 180 degrees out of phase across the load and therefore sum to 120 Volts, the same voltage and frequency for which equipment power supplies were designed. In this case however, the reference potential (ground) has been located at the midpoint between the two mains so there is no "neutral" wire."

Hope this helps.

-IMO

Karls, yes, that is true. However, in keeping with the original poster's question, I was addressing the house wiring/service panel only.

Also, since I've been wanting to do this only for my amp, thus leaving it at 230 volts and converting the amp to 230v, I had no need myself to research down-converters for 115v. So in my illustrations above, I stayed away from what I did not know.

And in my posting above where I describe how one can obtain balanced power at the service panel, at least one poster here responded by stating what I described could not be done. Unless of course, one were to use that line for an oven or clothes dryer.

At least some of us know that statement is simply untrue.

-IMO