Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys,

I'm looking at buying some electrical gear and found it's 220v - 50hz but can be upgraded to 240v, I've done the FOAG (fuck off and google) and most of what I found says 220v should work fine on our 240v, but also that our voltage in Au is actually 230v x_x .

So I just need some confirmation as to if it's :handgestures-thumbupleft: or :handgestures-thumbdown: before I place my order.

TIA

Mac.

The simple answer is that it's all the same mate. As you mentioned, you will find that your supply voltage can swing usually around the 230V mark, and Ausgrid are currently implementing modifications in my area to maintain a supply closer to the 230V mark than 240, as is the norm in the European area...(It was 220V in Europe and 240V in UK, so they compromised in the middle).

What is the equipment (roughly, I'm not the police ;-) )? There are a few exceptions with sensitive equipment that requires a regulator. If you're talking something with a motor, it couldn't care less what you feed it...

One of the local eleccy's might be able to weigh in more depending on the equipment, as my focus is on the supply end, but in most cases you'll be right.

Thanks Brendan, that's pretty much what I thought.

The equipment is motor driven, not a delicate device ;-)

MacStill wrote:The equipment is motor driven, not a delicate device ;-)

Yep, not a worry :handgestures-thumbupleft:

+1 perfectly acceptable

At our farm house have seen the volts from mains down to 180 :scared-eek:

Everything still works including the aircon but the lights are a bit dimmed 8-}

sam_and_liv wrote:At our farm house have seen the volts from mains down to 180 :scared-eek:

Everything still works including the aircon but the lights are a bit dimmed 8-}

LOL Sam ...you still got some of that contraband incandescent stuff

Yummyrum wrote:

sam_and_liv wrote:At our farm house have seen the volts from mains down to 180 :scared-eek:

Everything still works including the aircon but the lights are a bit dimmed 8-}

LOL Sam ...you still got some of that contraband incandescent stuff

Yep :laughing-rolling:

I know this is a bit after you first asked, but I thought I'd put my 2c in as I am an electician in the power industry.
Australia has had a 230V standard for some time now. It was 240V +/- 5%. At the minute it is 230V +10/-2%, which is pretty much the same "bandwidth" for acceptable supply voltage. One issue with motors is that a lower voltage will draw more current and reduce the life of it, but this voltage is now the standard.

A lot of cheap stuff (many cheap chinese imports such as computer power supplies etc) even have a rating of 220V, which, over time shortens its life expectancy as well. Ideally, if you can source 230 or 240V equipment, then go for it if it is not too much more expensive.

That even goes for lights. The old incandescent light was rated at 240V at one stage. When it dropped to 230V and even less for the el cheapo's, the life expectancy dropped by over 40%

What effect does solar power input back into the network have and when the sun sets this input stops .How is this managed.

wynnum1 wrote:What effect does solar power input back into the network have and when the sun sets this input stops .How is this managed.

This is way out of the scope of this thread wynnum, and you are asking questions that people study a lot to understand :? It has a big impact, especially as we have an ageing and outdated infrastructure in many areas which is not capable of handling too many of these sources being introduced. Some say that it was a political driving factor into the rebates for solar power being cut from what they used to be... :shifty:

The problem isn't so much when the input stops, but more when there is a lot of input.
In the beginning, the electricity network was built to manage 100% of the load. From a transformer, the wires generally were largest (to cope with the higher current) and then over distance on radial circuits, the size of the conductor decreased to the end of the circuit.
If there were many PV sources at the end of a line and they were all exporting, you could have a situation where many "exporting" sources pushed the current back towards the transformer and over-rated the size of the conductor. This is an issue that has started to appear at home here in Tassie.

For voltage regulation, the voltage from the solar array is DC voltage. It then is converted to AC at the supply voltage via an inverter which has a regulator control on it. This regulates the PV (photovoltaic voltage) to the distribution system voltage.

wynnum1 wrote:What effect does solar power input back into the network have and when the sun sets this input stops .How is this managed.

Like brendan said, this is an epic question, however, to put it in layman terms... lets say a power station can generate a max of 20 Watts. The area it supplys will generally use a peak of 18W, (I believe peak is usualy between 6 and 10pm) in off peak times the same area uses 10W. However if the houses with solar can supply 4W during the off peak times, the plant only needs to supply 6W of power, thus using less fuel to generate the required power. As the sun goes down the houses with solar produce less and thus the power station is required to produce more to keep up with the demand. A power station can increase and decrease the amount of power it creates, not unlike the go pedal on your car (although much more complex). Using complex calculations, providers can estimate the amount of power they need to generate at a given time, including estimates of demand and solar supply at said point in time. Hope this makes a little bit of sense, considering I have put well over half a bottle of McRum down. :O)

The problem TassieStiller mentions is when the maximum power supply for a particular grid is calculated at say 5W and thus the supply cables are sized to match and now due to so may people having solar, instead od the grid drawing 5W, it creates 7W which overloads the circut.