What is a Neutral? The Difference Between Grounded and Grounding Conductors.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 พ.ค. 2024
- After a certain amount of time in the field, we get a minute understanding of what the different colored wires are and what their general function is. Our ungrounded conductors, or hots, carry current to equipment. The grounding conductor, or the ground, is intended to carry current in a ground fault situation and physically bond our system to the earth. But what exactly does that ungrounded, or neutral, conductor do? Where do we get a neutral from? Today we answer these questions and more with "What is a Neutral"!
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Been in the field for two and a half years starting baby steps in residential, And this past weekend i passed my residential wiresman exam.. now i can support my wife and my two babies 👶 so much better and im only going up. Next is journeymen and im only 24 years old. Stumbling across your videos helped me achieve that Dustin. Thanks alot for your knowledge and wisdom brotha. God bless you all 🙏🏻
Congrats, man! You’ll get the next one soon enough
@@dmbkersh thanks bud 😁 hell to the yea ima get that next one for sure !! God bless you bro and have a great Christmas 🎄
Congratulations!
Good stuff man if you're part of a union you can have a good pension when you retire and make good side money there is a lot of money to be made if you know people get out there and hustle you can double your paycheck or more. I wish I could have joined a union when I was younger
Good stuff man if you're part of a union you can have a good pension when you retire and make good side money there is a lot of money to be made if you know people get out there and hustle you can double your paycheck or more. I wish I could have joined a union when I was younger
I've been a residential electrician for 12 years, just kinda fell into it because I've known the company owners for a long time. I started watching your videos and realized I didn't know nearly as much as I thought about the fundamentals of electricity. Learning a lot.
This is EXACTLY the reason why neutrals need to be checked for voltage before working on them. An improperly wired neutral can kill as easily as a “hot” wire. It seems like most of the troubleshooting I’ve seen or participated in has been chasing neutrals (commercial electrician).
I've experienced alot of those too, that's caused by having different circuits sharing the same neutral right?
@@glenn3197 yes. Multi wire branch circuits. Very common in older homes. I think 🤔 they are still legal just have more rules to follow.
It happens on 480/277 most of the time
When some residential electrician think of
120 v. Neutral is like 480/277 and they act alike
@@johnkruton9708 Now I’m more confused. Isn’t the neutral supposed to be shared between the two hot legs? I get that if the loads on each leg are perfectly balanced, there should be 0 current on the neutral. I suspect that my confusion is not understanding what you guys mean by shared neutral.
@@MarcosElMalo2 By "shared neutral" they mean multiple circuits that are using the same neutral (grounded conductor). It's a bad practice because if you de-energize a circuit you can still have power on the neutral from the other circuits.
I find it inspiring that while training to win the world title he managed to learn as much as he did about electrical work and now I'm learning from a certified badass.
thank you Connor McGregor!
I don't know how he can turn that accent on and off like that!
😅
Everyone should have a fall back.
dustin is connor lol
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Telling the internet not to get crazy with the details…brilliant.
Given how closely related my trade (HVAC) and Electrical are, I've found a lot of useful info in your videos.
I do electrical service work but have been slowly getting into HVAC service also. Similar troubleshooting electrical issues in them AC units
@@matthewellis3004 About half of our issues are just failed electrical components anyways, lol.
@@matthewellis3004hey, can I ask you how you are getting into HVAC? How you're going about getting credentials? I'm an electrician, but I started years ago in sheet metal only... I switched to industrial electrician and now I do commercial almost exclusively.... But I really want my HVAC card. I don't know if it's wise at 40yo. Lmk something.
@@stephbugg8988 we do commercial service calls. With that comes HVAC emergency work orders for AC not cooling. Almost always an electrical issue: run/start Capacitor.
Dustin... time to change the background color on the "White Board" so we can see the "White" conductors you draw. Great Job either way.
I needed this! First year apprentice and this topic was confusing until now. Thank you!
I have been doing electric work for 8 years. 7 of those years I had legal issues with are now resolved. I would really love nothing more than getting my license. This line of work is my passion and my life. If you can let me know away to go about getting my license. Please your videos are so great and teach so much. Austin tx is like a 45 min drive from my home town. So seeing your videos knowing it's helping me understand codes and the black and white side of being a Electrician. If I can get any feed back or info I would appreciate it. This is also my wife's Gmail so I comes up her name lol
Glad to see the terms of ungrounded, grounded, and grounding in this video as these are the proper terms for the test. great job
I appreciate your work. Could you do a physical demonstration with DMMs showing the flow? I did not understand the video explanation. Thanks.
I'm from United Kingdom and I like your knowledge I'm an electrician qualified. Our countries are similar in the Electrical industry but diffrent in small ways when I see how install light switches they look so confusing but not that bad in reality. You always have a switch feed and a switch wire just like anything in Electrical you have a system where the cable brakers etc goes up or down along the length of the system.
Thanks for all the videos, your guides and insight inspired me to get back into the trades, with some knowledge particularly in the electrical field. About a month in to my apprenticeship doing commercial and industrial work and loving it.
Good for you, good luck with the apprenticeship!
Video suggestions:
Why you don't get shocked from a neutral conductor.
What would happen if the neutral conductor wasn't grounded at the transformer.
The reason and importance of balancing a breaker panel.
Mainly in residential 240 volt service.
How do you balance a single phase panel? You can't get shocked from a neutral conductor.
@@lloydmills9619
Say you had 20 amp breakers in spaces 1,2,5,6,9 and 10. No breakers in the rest of the spaces.
These breakers were supplying your small house with all the power it uses.
Now all the power is drawn from one leg in your panel.
This would be completely unbalanced as the correct way to balance the panel would be to draw roughly the same amount of power from each leg.
This is an extreme example. Everyone would start at #1 and either work their way down one side or use both sides and work top to bottom and pay attention to the possible amp load being supplied to each of the two legs.
It would not be good to have a 100 amp panel and have it set up to draw 100 amps on one leg and 20 on the other.
You do not get shocked because it is grounded just like you are. It the system was not grounded then you would not get shocked from either one.
Note if the neutral is broken then you can get shocked from the part that is downstream.
Do's and Don'ts of transforming tapping with a highlight on proper bonding would be a great topic for a video. Great stuff man!
Great explanation! Another point you might touch on in the future is the neutral is being an anchor for the system. I know we would be getting deep into theory, but I think it’s worth talking about seeing as we are in Texas with the oilfield electricians running into a corner grounded delta system. Yes the neutral provides a way for smaller voltages but also serves as an anchor to keep voltage from “spiking” so to speak. Thanks for the content, 24 years in the trade and still learning everyday. Great work!!
Spiking? You mean from like lightning or something?
“What is a neutral?”
Me, a learned scholar: “That’s one below Reverse, I do believe.” 🧐
My freshly self-installed $300 ceiling fan: “Aight. I’m gonna just 🔥.”
I’m in school and this video helps so much we just covered this this week perfect timing man!!!
Hey Dustin! Sorry if this has already been covered, but I couldn't find any videos that looked like they address it. I know you're busy so here's the summary: Changed an irrigation pump from 120v to 240v as it was burning the outlet. I was surprised to find that in the 240v configuration it only called for the 2 hot leads and a ground. I understand a little bit about split phase, but this went against most of my knowledge of AC power. It might be interesting to talk about how this works and to also address the pros and/or cons of running that at 240v without the neutral. I detailed more below. Thanks for your videos. It's always fun to expand your understanding of things like this and you do a great job!
THE REST OF THE STORY IF YOU HAVE INTEREST:
I am a homeowner in rural Montana. I have a small piece of land 1.5 acres and I use an irrigation ditch to water my place. I'm a fairly educated homeowner when it comes to these things as I have built a building, sunk a separate ground, and wired in circuits and had an electrician inspect my work to make sure I did it correctly. My question is regarding my irrigation pump. I believe it is a 1.5hp and it sits next to my power pedestal at the road. In that box there is a main shutoff and one outlet with a breaker switch to control it. That outlet was getting fried on the one side because it was wired as a 120v outlet and I believe I was probably drawing more amperage than it could handle. So I inspected the pump and discovered that it could be wired for 240v instead. So I rewired it and then bought a 240v 3 prong outlet as that was what the pump called for. I was surprised to see that there was no neutral wired in. Just the two hot leads and the ground. I understand split phase, but this might be an interesting to cover, and I'm wondering if there is any disadvantage to running a pump this way vs at 120v with the neutral? Everything else running 240V that I have run had the neutral with it and was a 4 wire system.
A 240V configuration doesn't require a neutral because the 240V is derived by referencing the Line to Line voltage.
This person knows what he is talking about. He knows how to explain in a way that most underground engineers can clearly understand.
I'm a railroader but I have a lot of respect for electricians. I would've love to be in that field...that's a bright future 😅. Thanks for you videos
Very helpful in acknowledging the information.
Thank you.
As an audio guy, I have understood it like, Hot and Neutral are like "send and receive" , to and from the panel. And Ground is Ground the whole world around.
Current has to flow through- *from ground to make the circuit work, it only makes sense that every circuit would have it's own path separate from true ground. But you still need a true ground to make things safe and to make the GFCI work.
Please inform me if this logic fails to stick to the wall. I'm not a real electrician, just a com tech guy. But I like to learn.
Your “send and receive” model is incorrect. It is better to think of “hot” and “neutral” as equivalent in making a circuit. The distinction between them is only important in knowing their potential relative to ground.
Well, it was a good run. This video is clear as mud.
Just go touch the neutral and ground in a sub panel and it will become shockingly clear.
Actually don’t do that. It will probably shock you.
Thank you, great video. P.S. try not to use the yellow on the white board, it's not visible. 😉
I usually use blue for neutral on wiring diagrams if using a dry erase or similar.
It was explained to me that the neutral is a path back to the transformer to complete the circuit from one leg, through a load, and back to the transformer. The most important thing to remember is not all loads use up the 120/240V being supplied to them. That drop in voltage is called the voltage drop and all loads (relays, lights, refrigerators, etc) have this. When the full 120/240V is not used up that residual voltage gets delivered back to the transformer via the neutral wire. The transformer doesn't supply current, it's supplies voltage. A load creates amps via the voltage drop/utilization of power. You should have little to no current on a neutral, just a small amount of voltage.
No, the transformer applies Voltage which produces current (Amperage).
@@GH-oi2jf the transformer doesn't create current. A load creates current.
Harry the current is equal on live and neutral . How do you think a gfci works ?
Dustin, Food for thought. The reason for the neutral only carrying the unbalanced load is because when the two 120 volt sides get to the common point (neutral) the “system” is essentially working at 240 volts on all of the balanced load and those two 120 volt loads are in “series” which divides the 240 volts into 120 volts.
They don’t really explain this very well in electrical classes. Especially not electronics classes.
Respectfully, Kevin
Sent this video to my instructor, currently in school for electricity doing NEC and practicing installing a service, this explained a few things for me personally regarding load imbalance and additionally why the neutral is perfectly content being bonded with the ground within a service panel. Thanks!
Best explanation I've heard! Thank You!!!
Excellent job of explaining this to me correctly. A big Thank you.
Outstanding explanation. Thank you
Nice explanation, how about explaining the isolated neutral buss in a typical 120/240 V single phase sub panel ? Residential/ commercial Thanks
You never want regular voltage being carried by a ground wire. If the ground and neutral are connected at the sub panel then you would have regular current going from the sub panel to the main panel over the ground.
Follow the path of electricity for a 120v light connected to a circuit in the sub panel. Main panel hot to sub panel hot to branch circuit hot through the lightbulb to branch circuit neutral back to the sub panel neutral bar back to the main panel. If the sub panel neutral bar is connected to ground in the sub panel then the path back to the main panel would be half on the neutral going to the main panel and half over the ground going to the main panel. Which you don’t want because there should not be regular current going over the ground wires.
I just help fix a similar problem with a dryer on a sub panel that had the neutral and ground tied at the dryer. Current coming back to the sub panel from all the branch circuits over the branch neutral wires we’re going back to the main panel 90% over the sub panel to main panel neutral but 10% was going back through the neutral going to the dryer then going to the ground at the dryer (because neutral and ground were tied together there) back to the ground bus bar in the sub panel then to the main panel over the ground between the sub panel and main panel.
Neutral and ground should never be connected except where you are being connected to the utilities. Or you will get stray voltage on the ground wires within the structure. Which you don’t want.
It is to ensure current flowing through the neutral goes back to main panel so as to trip breakers on the main panel if a problem occurs.
DUSTIN!!! Love the new high tech setup brother! 👌 Amazing video as always.
I really like how you explain these topics
Always nice to see a new video. Unfortunately I can't apply it. Because I live in the Netherlands. Other rules and equipment. But l love to watch what your doing. Keep it up! Greetings from the Netherlands.
In the Netherlands and Europe, from what I understand, everything is 240 volts. Is this true? Does this mean there is no neutral available?
How do these voltage converters that change 240v to 120v work?
In the US, you can buy one to bring with you when you travel.
@@markchidester6239 In the Netherlands we speak of 220 volts, not 230 volts. These are the 'old' tensions in our grids. As far as my knowledge goes. Most appliances operate on both 110 volts and 220. So if equipment works on both you can use it without a converter. You will, however, need a different plug. (Travel adapters) Of course we have neatral and ground.
I hope I was able to answer your question. I'm not an electrician, ( this is what i know)
Best wishes to you...
Thanks for your videos they have been super helpful
In a house I always look at the Neutral as an insulated ground, isolated from each circuit, and the uninsulated ground is whorish and attached to everything. Both almost always attach to the same bus bar in older homes @ the main breaker panel.
In all houses the neutral should be connected to ground at the main panel, any subpanels should NOT have the neutral connected to ground.
@@voltsnbolts8879 yes or you get a grounding loop, I got corrected by my electrical inspector and had to get rid of the ground on the sub panel. No big deal, but a waste of some good copper grounding rods.
@@voltsnbolts8879 sorry you're wrong, we haven't done panels that way in a long time old son. Keep up with the times.
@@wabbajakk9552 bahaha, i just finished my apprenticeship in a country that turns out world class electricians and am now going for my electrical engineering degree. I can tell you are confidently incorrect
@@wabbajakk9552
You don't know what you're talking about.
Nice video, but I wish you would have gotten more into the difference between a grounded conductor and a neutral conductor, as there is no neutral in a two wire system. Only in a there or more system. Your lamp circuit has no neutral, nor dose your Microwave. They have a hot, and a grounded conductor, there is no neutral until they meet , and become a neutral back to the source. By definition the Neutral carries ONLY the unbalanced load between two or more hots. Thx for your vids
Neutral is the grounded conductor. It is neutral just because it is grounded. After multiple phases (split phase, three phase) meed neutral carried the unbalanced current but before that it carries the same current as the live wire. When they say neutral carried the difference they analyze the circuit at a specific point.
Back when I was a kid.. There was a hot, and neutral at 110 volts just like a human body oxygen enriched blood go's out the hot wire comes back in neutral wire .... 5 amps system. We need more volts for. Microwave. Computer. So now we have a ground. To carry the extra volts and amps
A couple of comments from an EE:
Tying the neutral to the earth ground is what keeps the two legs at 120V. In your unbalanced load scenario (light bulb and microwave), had the neutral not been grounded, the light bulb would have seen ~200V, and gone POP. We found this to be true many years ago when the earth ground wire from the generator powering the house after a winter storm came loose. Fortunately, it stalled the generator. Yes, current does flow through the earth ground in an unbalanced situation.
Since the neutral does carry current, this is why the neutral and ground are bonded ONLY at the main panel. All conductors have some resistance, and current flow causes a voltage drop. In, say, a shop several hundred feet away, neutral can be pulled well above ground when starting a large 120V motor, like a saw. If neutral and ground are separate, ground will not change, since there is no current flowing through it.
Maan sry, but this doesn't make sence. It is possible that the fact that the trans is grounded smooths out things, but as you should know voltage transfromation depends on the ratio of windings. If there is 200V spike on the secondary it means there is a spike on the primary. The reason these are actually grounded is so they could be called neatrual. This is were I dont agree with both of you since the grounding is actually what makes the neutrial if not they will all simply be hot. If lets say we have no grounds anywere the system will still work but if you use your faze detector it will light up everywhere. Also no load on one part of a coil will influence the V on the other part of tapped coil in his diagram the toaster and light would actually be considered as different circuits. I do low V analog stuff and all theory should apply to the bigger stuff,but I could be wrong.
Thanks for passing it forward.
Helping our fellow sparkies ; feed thier families.
Sweet
No, it is connecting the neutral to the center of the transformer that keeps the voltages equal. It would work even of some other point was connected to the earth instead or none was. Current never goes through earth in any normal scenario. It goes through the neutral to the transformer.
@@okaro6595 Ya after a few days of searching and one good video I finally got it. It's all about the difference in potential. I can even say that with none we have to use all 3 phases.
I don't agree with your first paragraph. In the scenario described, the tiny difference in voltage drop on the equal halves of the full 240 volt winding would shift the 0 volt potential of the tap point on the windings... True. But the very same tap point/neutral point that is now electrically 'drifting', if you will, is also connected to ground as I am sure you know BUT .... That ground can do nothing to alleviate the imbalance in the windings due to the different loads imposed on them. What the ground CAN do is slightly follow the drifting of the center tap voltage and thereby maintain zero potential voltage protecting personnel.
The term "grounded conductor" is ugly, but it is slightly more accurate than calling it the neutral. Especially if you are a lineman. There is a more real system neutral and it’s not this. What is described in this video is a tap in the X winding of a single-phase transformer coming off of one leg of a three-phase source. And it acts as a sort of local neutral for the purpose of the voltage references with respect to the load. That’s why it’s called “neutral” at the residence (the load). Maybe a better word would be the tap conductor. That would mean something to a distribution lineman but not so much to a residential electrician. Hence the confusing jargon.
The reason that this is important, is that if you were to encounter the real system neutral, there will be a voltage difference between it and this local neutral. If you are an electrician working in a facility with both single-phase and three-phase service, then you need to look out for these things.
I have a 230v solar hybrid inverter coming and before installing it I noticed the ac output terminal has only L & N no ground the ac input terminal has all 3 but I wasn't planning on using the input ac untill I understood a little more about how it works my question is the two output terminals L & N is L considered Line 1 & is neutral considered Line 2 Plus how well I know if there's a neutral on ground bond or not in the inverter if not what do I do if there is a ground on neutral what do I do I'm running the inverter to a subpanel and using a midpoint transformer to split the 240 into two 120 hot legs any suggestions or tip to keep me from blowing myself up lol
🤯..yea I get confused through the books words verses in the field..still learning everyday as a new journeyman
Yes I get the merds wixed up a lot.
Good, no, excellent video. Also in a way explains why there's such an imbalance in a residential service when there's an open neutral involved. On one side you have 140 volts and on the other there was 106 volts. Ran into this about a year ago. The imbalance didn't make sense to me, but I knew there was an open neutral somewhere.
Am I right that when the neutral from the utilities to your house gets disconnected the grounding rod starts carrying current back to the grounding rod of the utilities transformer? It doesn’t work as well as a proper neutral but it does work some. That’s why voltages get weird.
@@ecospider5 Exactly.. Both sides try to balance the load between them. Meaning one phase may go to 160 volts while the other drops to 80 volts but between the two you'll still have your total voltage supplied by the transformer. That's why lights go bright while others dim.. true story...lol
@@AmericanOne9621 That happened at my house many years ago. I came home and the kitchen light was lit up VERY bright. It fried my computer and a few other electronic things. It was an open neutral in the service drop.
@@TheTennTexan I've seen some strange things in my lifetime doing electrical work. Here's one for you.... Turned on a fluorescent fixture in a kitchen by waving my hand about 2 inches from it. If you want to know the details I'll share....
@@ecospider5 If the neutral breaks downstream from being connected t the ground then the 240 V divides arbitrarily between the circuits depending on the load.
I it breaks upstream it is more complicated. Essentially it will use the ground rod but also the voltage and current will come back to the ground to equipment cases. There it will seek whatever path it finds. Lets say you have connected your PC to your TV, it goes to the AV cables to the TV then it will go through the cable TV connection to where it goes.
Nice,clear, concise.👍
Thank you; from Denver, COLORADO; I am fellow TEXAN sparky
A topic that I find really interesting is what causes the lethality of electricity like the voltage vs the amperage. People who think they are smart say, well actually it's not the volts that kills you it's the amps. Like yes the amps are what send the shockwave to your heart to disrupt rhythm, but the higher the volts are, the harder it is to let go. It only takes .01 amps to kill someone so essentially any wire 120 volts and higher with any sort of microscopic load on it could kill someone but if you make contact with just the hot on a 120 ungrounded conductor you'll basically always be able to let go. Anyone who's ever been shocked by a high leg or 277 will tell ya the astronomical difference of how hard it pulls you lol. There's a reason why there's warning signs all over high voltage equipment despite olhms law suggesting high voltage has the lowest amps possible running through it
If a cannonball rolls gently into you, it's not going to do much. If I throw it as hard as I can, it's probably going to do some damage. If fire it out a cannon at you, it's going to tickle a bit. Cannonball = amperage, means of accelerating it = voltage. Tiny amount of amperage can kill you, but the voltage has to be high enough to overcome your resistance. Humans (and other animals) have varying resistance, which is tied to what part and the conditions (wet, dry, etc) of that part. A 9v battery on your arm won't do anything, but it'll tingle on your tongue.
@@jasonrm999 i understand what youre trying to say with the cannonball analogy but the part that doesnt work is the cannonball would vary in size if we are being super technical about it. simply just using voltage to describe a cannonball speed doesnt explain the whole picture because amperage isnt a constant. interrupted current under load will hit alot different than an idle live circuit would. you clearly know what youre talking about so im not trying to insult your intelligence im just being petty haha. that is very true that higher voltage allows the electricity to be able to make it to the heart though.. i would just add that the variable of a foot wide cannonball going 50 miles an hour versus a 2 foot wide cannonball going 25 and what would do more is whats interesting about the debate. obviously my numbers there probably arent sensical but its just to say a point
@@erich1380 Yeah I should have mentioned it's a gross oversimplification, but it is helpful at least in visualizing how it's not simply amperage at work when it comes to damage.
@@jasonrm999 like I said brother it's a good physical example of a commonly understand mechnical interaction so it works. My original comment just lays in a bit more specific and different of a realm because my mind wanders off into weird shit at work sometimes lol. When I was in school they described it like water in a pipe where the voltage was the speed of the water and amperage was the pressure
Current is what kills you because electrocution is what happens when...electric CURRENT runs through your body. But in order for current to flow, you need voltage. Voltage is the force that pushes current through a conductor. And that force has to overcome the resistance in the circuit in order for current to flow. If there's no force, or not enough force to overcome resistance, there will be no current flow (or a tiny amount of current that you may not even feel). And the more voltage you have, the more current will flow through you. Ohms law: V=I*R. If resistance stays constant, then current goes up as voltage goes up. Your body has a fixed amount of resistance (I realize the resistance of your body can vary widely, depending on where you're measuring from, if your skin is wet, etc, but in a given instance where you touch a live conductor, your body's resistance is a fixed value for that instance). So, more voltage means more current is flowing through you, and thus, more likely to kill you.
Thanks for making it make sense!
Grounds and neutrals are electrically the same being tied together "likely" at the service. The difference is their purpose. Grounds are an emergency path for static and ideally brief overloads. Neutrals are sized and protected by overcurrent devices for normal continuous operations.
They are not electrically the same. A neutral is connected to the neutral point in the transformer and provides a return path for any unbalanced load and completes the circuit. The ground conductor is a safety to take any fault ( in the event of a short from the current carring conductor to the equipment ) to earth ground to give the electricity a place to go other than through a person. Hopefully the electrician has installed everything properly and the breaker trips. (The breaker won't always trip depending on the brand used. See: ITE,GE,FEDERAL ETC . if the electrician used a good brand such as square D, or cutler hammer you can count on it tripping on a ground fault)
@@nooneyouknowhere6148 When transformers are used that include a common or neutral connection such as 4 wire 480/277 or 208/120 secondary. Isn't the "neutral conductor grounded" in the transformer or at the first overload device?
That's all I meant by saying electrically the same. All those little electrons are racing by to get back to the exact same place. Neutrals are the controlled desired paths. Grounds are for people and hardware protection path.
@@Stones_Throw right
@@Stones_Throw the problem comes when people start connecting grounds and neutrals together everywhere. Especially in sub panels. The fault current can take the wrong path and breakers dont trip etc
@@nooneyouknowhere6148Yes, that's why that connection is permitted only once at a service and/or transformers. If neutrals are grounded in multible places. Breakers and fuses should still trip but the problem is that current taking the least resistive path can continuously be going through anything metallic.
AWESOME EXPLANATIONS!!!
Hi Dustin, as always thank you for ypur videps it really helps a lot. Just want to ask where can I buy that NEC book with a tabs? Or did you just put the tabs yourselves? Thanks
Thanks for watching!
These are the tabs: www.amazon.com/Holts-Color-Coded-Stickers-Chart/dp/1950431312
I wonder why you are so smart, love your videos thanks for the knowledge
Let's say you want to find an open neutral on an RV, if I test every single braker to look if I have 120volts on hot with neutral and ground, is it the good way ?
where everyone gets confused is explaining to too much. A neutral carries current. A ground should be called an equipment ground, and that's for safety. It never carries current unless there's an equipment fault.
British use different terms: Connecting the neutral to the ground is grounding and connecting the case to the ground (grounded neutral or in some cases separate incoming earth) is earthing. The proper term for those are operational grounding and protective grounding/earthing.
@@okaro6595 I agree. The Grounded conductor should be called the "earth" conductor and would avoid all this confusion! The idiots that do the terminology for the code are too stuck up to have anything simple and make sense! They just like to show their superiority. I am an electrical engineer and have been against other EE that have that mindset.
Great explaination! Just subscribed 👍
Thanks and welcome 💪⚡
Editing note - I could not see the 2nd color you drew, the one for the neutral tap. I could see the black, then later the blue and green, but not the 2nd.
great explanation!
Just curious, without respect to the code, does that mean that you could attach your neutral bar in the box strictly to a ground electrode buried in the earth and it would still function properly? If so how does that differ from a “green wire” ground aside from conductor sizing based on intent to carry current vs intent to not carry current?
You mean having no copper back to the source. Sure it would work to some extent but the ground resistance is high. If it is 20 ohms you would be limited to 6 amperes in total on a single phase 120 V system. On the split phase it is more complicated but not ideal. Also there would be potentially fatal voltage gradient near the rod.
Are you asking how does ground and neutral differ? Well not really in anyway besides their function. Mow in some countries like UK the ground can be smaller wire and it does not have separate sheath. This n a TN-C-S system of course.
Great Explanation
Well I see and here and am clearer on what I never understood. But man now confused. Before just did not know. Now with new knowledge really confused. Between how Neutral and ground are different. If neutral is going to ground. But surely willing to learn and understand. You got me on this vid. Rock on.
The utility has the neutral and ground tied together where the utilities enter the building (the main breaker panel) for their own reasons. Inside the house the neutral and ground should never be connected together. The ground should only be there to give a path for current to be able to trip the breaker when there is a short to ground.
That’s a perfect world of course and rarely are things that perfect.
Important thing is to realize that as far as working of a device is concerned it does not matter which one is neutral. The difference is for safety reasons only.
Neutral and ground are basically same. They go to the same place. The neutral just is the one that carries the current in normal operations. Ground does not carry current normally. The current raises voltage on the neutral to a few volts or so. If the current was on the ground it would raise the voltage on all equipment cases. This then would cause stray currents on things like data cables.
In some countries like Finland and Germany the neutral was earlier used for grounding. Such tray currents are a reason that is not done anymore. It also has some safety concerns if the neutral breaks. The voltage gets to the cases.
@@okaro6595 Thanks for that. I know how to work around a lot of stuff. But electricity makes my brain want more understanding. Whatever work on. I look for codes so I can do it right. On electrical when in doubt I call my friend I pull onto jobs when over my head. And Jayson does industrial, commercial and residential. He will tell you Bob does it right and if in doubt he calls. So thank you Okaro X. I have a circuit testest and warns when circuits are out of balance. just had one Gfci would trip out. I want to know why. Dry location and all circuits were dry. But customer did not want to find out and fix. Installed regular breaker and added gFI outlets and everything ran. Hots, neutrals and grounds all checked out.
@@ecospider5 But the neutral and ground are tied together inside the house. If you don't believe it turn off all power to your house and use an ohm meter and see.
This helped A LOT
The neutral is a transformer tap going to ground for a desired voltage at the tap that's grounded. And it is grounded, just like the equipment safety wires are grounded in the same way. The 7200 high side on transformer ...one side of winding is the grounded wire in a wye most likely 3 phase secondary system. The equipment safety grounds are as well current carrying wires in the event of an open hot coming into contact with the equipment. It saves your life in higher voltage situations should you touch the equipment. The reason you can touch a neutral bar / wire and not get shocked is because it too is grounded in the same manner as equipment ground
It might be less confusing to say that the Neutral wire is at ground potential (or at the same potential as ground) rather than saying it's 'grounded'
For me that was always confusing. Since the neutral Carrie's current, if it was the some potential as ground then wouldn't your ground rod also carry current all the time? Maybe you could explain
Thank you!
I love this thanks for explaining it to where a man of basic intelligence as myself can understand kudos
Thanks
I believe THIS Really helped out a lot explaining the poll transformer set up on the house side.
Trying to understand the wiring in the “OLD” houses that have run like a 10/2 wire way out to a barn for the well pump, then over the years up into the 60s n 70s other wires were run out of the old glass fuse box to lights or receptacle’s with all the Ground & Neutrals going to the Same bar, and you See that This has worked for Who Knows how many decades…!!! 🤔🤷🏻♂️🫣 What say yee?
Thanks Dustin, very helpful. I wonder if one day you would do a video about Ohm's law, and how each of the three values (current, resistance, voltage) change when various loads are plugged in on a household circuit? Like if you plug in a load at the first receptacle, and then another load at recept # 2, there's more current going through the whole thing, but doesn't that mean the other values have necessarily changed as well? Love the channel, my friend. Cheers!
I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than Ohm’s Law.. i’m no technician, but I am an electrical engineering student, and the first thing I think about is real power, reactive power and complex power. Maybe that’s over complicating things but I know that’s how we analyze large scale loads like houses and industrial loads etc. I thought about this because it changes the overall load from the power system to your house. Really cool stuff.
In the example you use you would be drawing load off a single phase 120V branch circuit. 1st load at 1st receptacle is say 5A so that would be 5A on your hot and 5A returned on your neutral. Add another load at rec 2, so lets say its 3A. The total load would now be 8A on hot and neutral. The neutral is always equal in amperage to the hot and the voltage would stay constant at 120v. Your neutral only becomes “unbalanced” when it is shared by two different hots/phases in a panel. ( That is the example Dustin is showing on the board). To add another head scratcher to this if you run a three phase four wire distribution out of a commercial panel and all three hots to be equal in amperage, there is zero amps flowing back to your panel.
Im an apprentice but this.
simplified, in ohms law you need a constant, which is generally voltage, and then the resistance of your lights or whatever your load is, is gonna stay the same. (It wont stay the same, it changes but simplified.)
So in a parallel circuit, which a branch circuit of outlets is, the voltage is the same at every receptacle and they dont affect each other, same with resistance, so the only thing that changes in a simplified version is current, as you add more loads the current will increase accordingly.
@@stinkstick17 yes its cover the karachop law the current is entering in a circuit will be equal to the sum of current coming out of the circuit .
i dont think anyone specifically answered your question but its pretty simple to answer. in relation to the total circuit, yes values have changed, but that's because you added to the circuit. When you have line voltage fixed at 120V and you plug in say a 15W appliance, that adds a 0.125 Amp draw (voltage X Amperage = Watt, so Watt / Voltage = its Amperage). but now when you plug in a second, say 30W appliance, the whole circuit is now pulling a total of 45W which now means there's 0.375 Amps flowing.
Another way to look at it would be to look at the equivalent resistance. So at 120V, for a 15W load, that has a equivalence of 960 Ohm. (Voltage / Ohm = Amp or you can use Voltage / Amp = Ohm) Now when you look at a 45W load that means its equivalent to 480 ohms (at the same voltage, a lower resistance will lead to more current, and remember Current X Voltage = Wattage). so now when you plug both appliances in at the same time you effectively add them in parallel. With resistors in parallel, adding more will counter intuitively always reduce the total resistance because now you are adding more paths for current to flow. Again this is specifically to adding them in parallel and not series. So the math gets a little more confusing but for adding resistors in parallel its 1 / (1/R1 + 1/R2...) so for our example it would be 1 / ((1/960) + (1/480)) = 320 ohm. So now with voltage being 120 and our combined resistance at 320 ohm, then 120v / 320 = 0.375 Amps.
Got it. Neutral is grounded. Just use ground as a neutral. Kidding of course. Good explanation.
In many countries same wire was used for neutral and ground up to the socket in the past. There is nothing inherently wrong in that though it does have problems so it is not used anymore.
Is it still considered leaving a neutral in a box if I use a neutral as a switch loop/ dead end ?
Bruh! Ya got the board, nice!
You guys are awesome 👏 👍👍
Great video! Can you do more discussing ground vs. neutral and why they are grounded at all? And then why in some cases, like certain portable generators, they say not to ground at all?
Its all about potential.
1) Ground vs Neutral - Earth (Ground) : The Earth wire (Ground wire) is connected to Earth Bus (Ground bus) which is connected to the Physical Earth via an Earth Stake which makes it at Earth Potential (0 Volts). Neutral : The Neutral wire is connected at only one place , the Mains board, to the Earth Bus (Ground bus) which also makes the Neutral at Earth Potential (0 Volts). The Neutral is the return path for the current when only one phase (120V) is used.
2) Why are they Grounded at all ?: By connecting the Neutral to the Earth Bus (Ground Bus) and therefore making it at Earth Potential (0 Volts) you are making the Neutral the return path for a circuit that uses only one Phase (120V). Connecting the Earth Bus (Ground Bus) to the Neutral makes any fault current on the Earth wire (Ground wire) have a low resistance pathway through the Neutral connection at the Mains board back to the transformer which will make the Circuit Breaker trip.
3) The reason they don't want you to connect a portable generator to the Earth (Ground) via an Earth stake, in the case of say it powering a house, is because you don't want to have multiple connections of the Earth wire (Ground wire) to the Neutral. One created at the House Earth Stake and one created at the Generator Earth Stake.
Commercial use of electricity began around 1880. By 1900 they had learned that one needs to ground systems even though if gives the possibility of shock between live and ground. Remember protective grounding came only some 30 years later. That means there were really good reasons go ground systems.
It mainly is about over voltage protection that could be caused by for example lighting nearby (a direct strike to the lines causes hell no matter what). Also accidental grounding of an ungrounded system is a problem so it was seen better to do it controllably.
In very small systems ungrounded can be better like when using an isolating transformer.
I feel like this answered some questions for me but now I have even more questions. So even though I understand more I some how feel like I understand less if that makes sense lmao. Thanks for another great video man 👍
I posted something much the same. Lol
As your knowledge expands so does your awareness of what you don’t know expands.
Ok got ya. In a transforer you have your primary wording .... black yellow set ofwindings. On the secondary you can have a hot a gnd and a tap between em that may be a neutral wire tap in a high impedence transformer or high pot in a old tv set for use to fire the electron gun.
if the neutral is grounded at the transformer and the coil that the neutral is in is the same coil that the hot is in then shouldnt the hot be grounded too? 4:49
i think one part you left out is the phase of the two hots being 180 from each other thus while the ac in one is full positive the other line is full negative giving the total output numbers. in this case center tapping gives one hot to nuetral half the voltage the same as the other half but the polarity on the other is opposite.
Yeah he definitely left out the fact that they are out of phase
Great Videos man, how is it youve tabbed your codebook? just going through basic now and want to know your method
I use these: www.amazon.com/Holts-Color-Coded-Stickers-Chart/dp/1950431312
@@ElectricianU awesome thanks! Now to find the CEC version 👍🏻
Can you explain why in a 240V circuit/device, some devices need neutral and some do not?
Some of those devices may be using internal components which may run on 120V and it may be more convenient to grab the neutral in order to get that voltage.
If you want to nerd out , look up Elihu Thomson , he was instrumental in these rules . Back in the beginning of time.
Thumbs up and subscribed!
is there anyway to stop the white board from making that chalk/writing noise?
I have about 20 outlets in my house, and not a single one has a ground wire. I can’t afford to re wire my entire house, would replacing each outlet with a gfci be my best and most cost effective option?
2:01 on single phase distribution lines, usually one of the "hot" primary lines is grounded. It's done to keep the voltage potential from the primary lines to the earth from going crazy, but can cause problems at times.
Thank you I was fixing to be lost reading this code book 📕
This made sense, but what I would have liked would have been a demonstration of a three-wire "conductor", like what you would see at an outlet and you would identify which wire is which. In other words, what is the black wire, what is the red wire, and what is the bare copper wire and how do they fit into your diagram.
Which smart board is that? I would love to get one for my shop. Thanks
Have a house built in the 60s(?) Wiring is copper solid core with fabric insulation, and a fuse box, probably 80a service. While following code, could you replace the fuse box, then come back once a month on the weekend a replace one circuit at a time?
That would depend on what the AHJ has to say on the matter.
Thank you bro your awesome please more videos
Hey Dustin, what's the difference between a grounded conductor and a neutral?
Neutral is just another name for grounded conductor
Many specialists explaining what is a neutral, but nowhere to find how did circuits work when neutral was not required like in homes built before the 80's.
Can you do a video on the math for pvc expansion joints
Yeah, it seems like just one ten foot stick is enough to require an expansion joint with PVC.
Is it actually 2 separate wires wrapped around the coils or is it wire from 2 points?
Look up how transformers are made. It is very interesting. In making his high-voltage machines for arcs, Tesla used 2 turns of wire on the primary and many on the secondary. An iron core is used with part of it going around the primary turns and the other part going around the secondary turns. The turns are the turns or coils of wire which is necessary to insulate from each other.
so much for his artwork.....
the electrical system where i live is 240 vac, 60 hz, two-wire (hot and neutral) and ungrounded system. i often get zapped when touching the metal frames of some electrical loads, i want to install a ground rod and upgrade my circuit wirings to grounded system, do i need to bond or connect the grounding wire to the neutral line?
Is this in North America? I would have an electrician install a new panel meeting current code. That’s not because I don’t think a nonprofessional can’t do it. I did it myself once. It’s a lot of work and it’s dangerous. Once you have a proper service panel, adding circuits is fairly easy.
@@GH-oi2jf i just need to know before i hire an electrician if the ground wire should be bonded to the neutral line, take note also that the system we have is not like the same in the u.s. where there are two hot lines and a neutral line. our system has one hot line and a neutral line.
@@igorivanov7232 - He is discussing the North American system here. We in the United States do not, generally, know the detailed rules for configuring an electric system in other places. We ground the neutral at the service panel, and we ground all exposed metal housings of electric equipment.
It would be better to get documentation specific to your system to see how it should be done.
@@GH-oi2jf could you explain then why under the american system the ground is bonded with the neutral line? if i am not wrong, my understanding is that the neutral line and the ground line attached to it could potentially become dangerous when there is an imbalance load. since the neutral line is the return path of electricity, should the ground line be separated from the neutral line?
@@igorivanov7232 - I don’t use the term “return” because I don’t think it is helpful in understanding AC circuits. We want one point in the circuit attached to ground so that all points in the circuit have a fixed potential (voltage) relative to ground. The “neutral point” is where the system is grounded. In our North American system that is the center tap of the secondary. Grounding it means that the voltage elsewhere in the circuit is limited to 120V relative to ground. The neutral is bonded to ground only at the main panel where the power comes into the building. The ground wires are connected to an actual earth ground in some manner.
In a 3-phase system, the common conductor in a “Y” configuration is the neutral point. If that is grounded, the phase voltages (probably 230V more or less in Europe) will similarly be limited relative to ground. In both cases, we are interested in potential relative to ground (not just neutral) because you are probably providing a path to ground when you receive a shock from a “hot” point in the system.
If your service has only one phase of a 3-phase system, one of your lines should still be the neutral and I expect it should be tied to ground (although I do not know the details of your system).
Note that “unbalanced loads” in the North American system or in a typical 3-phase system have nothing to do with the reason we want the neutral point tied to ground. Unbalanced loads merely create current in the neutral, which is normal.
Any tips for a Greenhorn Sparky?
Just started my appretishship 1 week ago.
Listen twice as much as you speak, keep the phone use to a minimum, and anticipate need.
Observe everything around you, and if given a task handle it like your job depends on it.
Good luck!
Question about balancing and Main Breakers. is the load rating of the main panel breaker the 120-volt or the 240-volt amperage rating?
For example, a 150a breaker will trip at 18.000w or 36,000w.
The breaker is only on the hot wires. So if you had 150a load on one leg only (which would be a 120v load) the breaker could trip. But having zero load on the second leg would be weird. But yes it will trip somewhere between 18,000w and 36,000w when one leg hits 150a.
Now this is just theoretical because a breaker doesn’t actually trip exactly when it’s amperage is hit. The amperage is what it is guaranteed to carry without tripping. It will trip at some percentage above that eventually. It trips faster at 200% it’s rating than 105% it’s rating.
@@ecospider5 cool that's what I thought. thx for the insight.
It would hold 105% indefinitely and 115% for at least 3 hours. Assuming its a listed ITT Breaker. Read the trip curves to understand them better.
What is the touch screen that you are using?
Great video
I was wondering where you got the code book from?
Thanks!
The NEC is available here: www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codes-and-standards/detail?code=70
Is it recomend runing three wire circuits for home wiring?
In the USA 120v should be hot neutral and ground. 240v should be a hot from leg 1, a second hot which comes from leg 2, a neutral and a ground.
The neutral and the ground should never be tied together except at one location where the utilities enter the building (main breaker panel)
Do you mean shared neutral? That’s a separate video.
Great info, love these videos. Didn't realize Conor McGregor was going to make a guest appearance.