Changeover from 110V to 220V.

[colly0410]

I was reading Tractorfans thread about live chassis use in Europe & it got me thinking.

What Countries changed their mains voltage from 110V to 220V and when? I think France did but not sure about others.

[winston_1]

France never used 110v. They did however, like many other European countries use 127v.

Back in the '60s parts of France, including Paris were on 127v, other areas used 220v. I also found 127v in Luxembourg, and Leningrad. At the same time Italy was on 140v if the labels on light bulbs were to be believed.

In the '70s South Korea, parts of Thailand and Indonesia used around 110v, all are now upgraded to 220v.

[julie_m]

127 V phase-to-neutral is 220 V phase-to-phase.

[emeritus]

In the early days of electricity supply in the UK, there were many local variations, and I suppose that Mainland Europe was no different to the UK in this respect. The book "The Hornby O Gauge System" has a reproduction of the instruction leaflet for the first Hornby Electric train, introduced in 1923 and only available in France, and this explicitly refers to it being for use with a 110V supply, AC or DC.

[Heatercathodeshort]

This old letter was passed to me many years ago when a customer was clearing out her deceased fathers papers.
The 'limited supply' referred to the old Wimbledon 'loop line' 110v system that gave Wimbledon it's first electric light and later mains radio. The system was installed around 1890! I remember as a young lad visiting my Nan in Havelock Road. I thought it was great fun to see how many lights could be turned on before the solenoid cut in and switched the whole lot off. [It used to pulse] Switching a light off would stabilize the system and restore the lights and her Philco radio. [Maximum 150W total] Happy days!

[Peter.N.]

Cheapside in the city had a 110-0-110 system either side of earth in 1954 while I worked there but was changed to single phase before I left. I noticed that the lights on Cannon St station flickered at what looked like 25hz, any idea what supply they had, DC perhaps?

Peter

[Nicklyons2]

In the USA and some industrial sites which generated their own electricity 25 Hz was once quite a common standard BUT I don't think it was ever widely used in the UK. I suspect Cannon St station would have most probably have been obtaining a supply from Lots Rd which generated a.c. at 33Hz for distribution around the Underground system and from which the 630VDC traction supplies were derived.

[SteveCG]

Mention is made in post number 2 of a 140 Mains voltage in Italy. If true, this could go someway to answering a question I had when I was a nipper as to whereabouts one would have used the "150 V" tap setting on a Grundig TK35 Tape Recorder !

[emeritus]

The Cannon Street supply was indeed 25Hz. Before the grouping of 1923, the railway companies that were merged to form the Southern Railway used different electrification systems. The Cannon Street company used overhead electrification at 25Hz, a frequency low enough to allow ordinary series-wound motors designed for DC to be used. The Southern decided to standardize on 750VDC third rail, but Cannon Street continued to be supplied with electricity from the old 25Hz power station for many years after the change-over.

[Nicklyons2]

Originally Posted by emeritus

The Cannon Street supply was indeed 25Hz. Cannon Street continued to be supplied with electricity from the old 25Hz power station for many years after the change-over.

I stand corrected but I hope Emeritus will agree with me that London was rife with unusual frquencies & voltages for quite some time; my personal 'favourite' was 83 1/3 Hz. Now this seems daft written down as we show it now but, in the parlance of the time, it was 2,500 rpm on a 4 pole machine - which sounds quite sensible really. Another power related 'factoid' (as I believe they're called now) is that the 630v traction current on the Underground is asymetric about earth i.e. 210-0-420 and, I am led to believe, some of the distant stations for years had no 'mains' supply and the lighting supply was derived from the 0-210 part of the traction supply. This meant that the half dozen or so 150W 'pearls' which were illuminating the platform, dimmed disconcertingly when a heavily loaded train was departing the platform.

[broadgage]

The actual traction voltage supplied on London underground varies a fair bit, but is generally reckoned to be 660 volts nominal, 440 volts positive to earth on one conductor rail and 220 volts negative to earth on the other.

AFAIK every underground station had a grid supply for lighting etc, but at many stations this supplied MOST of the lighting but not all.
About 25% of the lighting was I believe supplied from the traction current and would indeed dim when a train accelerated.

[broadgage]

Originally Posted by colly0410

I was reading Tractorfans thread about live chassis use in Europe & it got me thinking.

What Countries changed there mains voltage from 110V to 220V & when? I think France did but not sure about others..

There was not a general changeover.
There were some 3 wire DC systems that changed from 110/220 volts to 220/440 volts, but most consumers would have had 220 volt appliances by then.

Some 3 wire DC systems at either 110/220 or at 220/440 changed to 3 wire single phase AC at similar voltages.

By far the most common change was from 3 phase 4 wire AC at 127/220 volt to 3 phase 4 wire at 220/380 volt.
Most consumers would have had 220 volt appliances by then with only 127 volt appliances requiring modification or replacement.

Other European supplies changed from 3 phase 3 wire at 220 volts to 3 phase 4 wire at 220/380 volts. Again no new appliances would be needed.

I think that a few 3 phase 3 wire 220 volt supplies still exist in Southern Europe, they would be called 230 volts now.

[Nicklyons2]

And not only the systems described above but in addition most of the N.E. of England used 40Hz until the final unification of the National Grid ( I still have 1 transformer labelled 40Hz ), not to mention 2 Phase was quite common in some cities, Leeds being one. The transformer providing the remaining 2Phase areas was still in Kirkstall power stations yard into the 1970s (3Phase to 2Phase via Scott's connexion). I believe 2 Phase was quite common in Italy and can be seen in the various wiring arrangement diagrams shown for load balancing on large kitchen appliances sometimes found on Neff/Indesit/Zanussi.

[emeritus]

The electrical section of my "Molesworth's Pocket Book ", 1899 edition, refers to the usual US frequency being about 130Hz, and the usual European as about 70 Hz, the tendency being to reduce it, due in part to the skin effect, eddy current losses, and the damage caused to insulation by high frequencies. 42 Hz was said to be the lowest that would not produce flicker in incandscent lamps. [Of course, Molesworth uses "cycles" rather than Hz.]. Lynmouth was I believe the last public supply to use 100Hz (at 100V), this ending when the power station was destroyed in the disastrous floods of 1952.

I have a Eumig P8 8mm movie projector that I think must date from about 1960 that has voltage settings for 110, 160, 200, 220 and 240V, 50/60 Hz AC. Perhaps the 160V setting was for Italy.

At least three stations served by underground trains (Upton Park, East Ham and Barking: actually BR stations used by the District and Metropolitain lines) were still lit by gas until the late 1960's, more than a century after electric trains were introduced in 1905.

[G6Tanuki]

I can recall in parts of the industrial East Midlands 200VDC mains was common on some of the older estatesup until the late-1960s: a relative had this, and there was a big rather-hot-running *valve* inverter box behind their TV.

Another reference-point is that Japan does things quite differently: 100 volts is quite common there, and they have a mix of 50 and 60Hz depending on where you are.

This recently caused all sorts of problems when the Tsunami took out a few of their nuclear plants: they couldn't easily feed power from the other end of the country because of the frequency difference.

Also, in the 1970s/1980s there were quite a few "grey import" Japanese-made amateur-radio transceivers going round in the UK. The importer had simply split the two 100V windings (run in parallel for Japanese market) and connected them series-aiding - fed from 240V they ran rather warm and their voltage-regulators had a short, stressful life.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
I remember seeing the servicing info for a radiogram which had an AC/DC chassis and a valve inverter to run the gram motor. Something like two 6L6s in a multivibrator circuit. It could be switched out when the gram was used from standard AC supplies. Wish I could remember what make it was.
Anyone else seen one?
Cheers, Pete

[mole42uk]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I can recall in parts of the industrial East Midlands 200VDC mains was common on some of the older estatesup until the late-1960s: a relative had this, and there was a big rather-hot-running *valve* inverter box behind their TV.

I was involved in the refurb of a factory in Nottingham in the late '70s and there was a goods lift working on 200V DC in the building. The lift engineers had to supply and install a rectifier which was a cheaper option than replacing the motor, speed control, brake and control system.

Richard

[colly0410]

When I was a kid (early 1960's) living in the Meadows area of Nottingham, we were on 200V DC. I remember them digging the roads up to lay new cables for the changeover to AC, I was nosy asking them what they were doing, of course they told me to clear off. When we were still on DC the telly used to keep losing vertical hold, Dad said "I'll be glad when we are on AC, we wont have this problem then." I know in theory it shouldn't make any difference, but in practice did the 50 HZ AC ripple help with frame lock?

[Anthony Thomas]

Up until about 1954 we lived in Kingstaon Road Teddington and I can distinctly remember to electricians that were in our house and changed the electric motor in our English Electric Ritemp washing machine when we converted to AC mains. At this time I was only about 5 years old and know no details as to what mains frequency we had or did not have.

I know that about this time we also had our first televison set from Domestic Electric Rentals for the Coronation (1952) and this would of course date the change from DC to AC to being "about" 1953-ish because we had used the television a while.

Great Aunt next door had gas lighting and a wireless that used acumulators and a big blue HT battery. Wish I had taken care of that in 1970 when Great Aunt died but much was just bined

Tony

[Synchrodyne]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I can recall in parts of the industrial East Midlands 200VDC mains was common on some of the older estates up until the late-1960s: a relative had this, and there was a big rather-hot-running *valve* inverter box behind their TV.

The possible irony here is that the TV receiver that was fed from the inverter had a transformerless live chassis type power supply arrangement, one of whose usual justifications was the ability to operate on DC. Production of valve inverters for domestic use seems to have survived into the 1960s at least; Wireless World October 1960 makes brief mention of a Valradio model with an ECC82 flip-flop and four KT55s in parallel push-pull, class C, presumably for efficiency.

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

Another reference-point is that Japan does things quite differently: 100 volts is quite common there, and they have a mix of 50 and 60Hz depending on where you are.

This recently caused all sorts of problems when the Tsunami took out a few of their nuclear plants: they couldn't easily feed power from the other end of the country because of the frequency difference.

I think that there are several AC-DC-AC transfer points between the 50 Hz (east) and 60 Hz (west) grids, but not of huge capacity.

Originally Posted by Tractorfan

Hi, I remember seeing the servicing info for a radiogram which had an AC/DC chassis and a valve inverter to run the gram motor. Something like two 6L6s in a multivibrator circuit. It could be switched out when the gram was used from standard AC supplies. Wish I could remember what make it was. Anyone else seen one?

Thus with local electronically generated AC it would have predated the Thorens TD125 concept by quite a few years. Apparently Quad used a valve oscillator in conjunction with modified Quad II power amplifiers to supply the gramophone motors and tape decks used at the Wharfedale RFH live vs. recorded demonstrations.

Originally Posted by emeritus

The Cannon Street supply was indeed 25Hz. Before the grouping of 1923, the railway companies that were merged to form the Southern Railway used different electrification systems. The Cannon Street company used overhead electrification at 25Hz, a frequency low enough to allow ordinary series-wound motors designed for DC to be used. The Southern decided to standardize on 750VDC third rail, but Cannon Street continued to be supplied with electricity from the old 25Hz power station for many years after the change-over.

With DC traction, 25 Hz was also used to supply the rotary converters in the days before mercury arc rectifiers. Being commutator machines, the rotary converters of the day preferred lower frequencies.

The single-phase series wound traction motors were actually quite a lot different to their DC counterparts, and worked best on very low frequencies such as 15 and 16⅔ Hz. 25 Hz was something of a no-man’s land, used mostly in the USA because 25 Hz industrial supplies existed, but development was abandoned in the early 1950s as soon as traction-suitable ignitron rectifiers became available. On the other hand, development of 16⅔ Hz single-phase traction motors continued in Switzerland until the 1970s.

Cheers,