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[Mats Fagerkull]

Yan Ovtchinikov wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 17:13

Where do they get soo much power in the first place, where as here in europe our mains normal household power is 230V, but is it possible that in all theaters they wont have these normal Mains outlets? but have specially designed built into the wall units that will have the BIG multipin connectors into which you connect the 3 phase power plugs that will give you like 600V or something like that. God bless all

You've got this mixed up Yan. Don't confuse the regular *output* (shouldn't be called main) with the *input* (which could be called "main")

The regular output receptable in Europe is 1-phase 230V 10/13/16A. But this is not the *main incoming* voltage.

What you got delivered to your household breaker panel is probably 3-phase 400V (16/20/25A). This is recieved from a transformator station down the block (or village quarter) which probably gets 10-20 000 V (1000/2000A). Which in turn is derived from the suburb or city (depending on size) transformator(s) which takes the 100-400 000 V line(s) from the powerplant. Note this numbers are aproximatly and varies from country to country.

Any theater in London would *minimum* have a *main incoming* around 3-phase 400V 100/200A. This might then be breakdown into several 3-phase 400V 63/32/16A (CEE contacts) and numerous 1-phase 230V 10/13A outlets (on separate fuses).

Once again (as Tom's already said) there is good reading to be found in earlier topics on LAB. And what you really need to read is everything about distros since that explains the principle you are asking about.

You might also ask the lighting guys at a theater how a dimmer pack works (breaking up the incoming 3-phase 400V 63/32A into 1-phase 230V 10/13A ) since it is a distro (with some fancy stuff to regulate voltage on the output just so they can flash their.....)

Best option is if you locally find a licensed electrician to pick on to learn more about powerdistrobution and transformators.

HTH /mats

[Yan Ovtchinikov]

OOORIGHT thats alot of that to, yh defintly in next upcoming days gonna give it some nice study and get into more understanding on this subject;) again thats for the info its all really helpful.

God bless

[Chris Penny]

As pointed out 3 phase is mainly used for higher output applications.

Here in Australia we run with 3 phases @ ~240V AC (50Hz) which added together as 3 phase is ~415V. Here most homes as well as most churches are fed by a single phase. It can be interesting to go outside sometimes and see every 3rd house (or so) blacked out.

Remember for sound ideally you would be running everything to a common ground. However most circuits are limited to a maximum current of 20 A before the circuit breaker/fuse would go. Therefore in high power situations I have been told the thing to do is to actually run from a 3 phase supply, as they have a common ground. This supply is then split up to its three phases allowing you to draw up to 60 amps (20 amps/phase).

It must be remembered for most church situations you are aren't going to challenge a single phase (well that is until they attach a heater to the circuit...), so unless your a pro serving large conferences or mega-churches you don't really need to know that much.

I also recommend the wiki.

[Yan Ovtchinikov]

Well i think its hard to say where it depends how big your church requirments are, i mean you can have alot of lighting anf sound equipment, for that mostly you would require 3-phase power. where as here in london our theatres are i think they are 440V at 64amps sockets. So thats alot of power to be split, specially to the lighting guys, hehe they are the ones who usually get fried.

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