Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Bullshit, or NOT? AC line problems.
Message-ID: <1991Feb5.162138.10065@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1991Feb5.005045.388@miavx2.ham.muohio.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 1991 16:21:38 GMT

In article <1991Feb5.005045.388@miavx2.ham.muohio.edu> tgkreimer@miavx2.ham.muohio.edu (Tom Kreimer) writes:
>between .2 and .8v between the Neutral and the Ground. He thinks it 
>should be 0v and MAY be a contributing factor to our "problems"...
>Now, one of our guys was checking into it and found that while the 
>Hot was a clean sine wave, the Neutral was a bit "fuzzy". He 
>also noticed that voltage between Neutral and Ground went to zero 
>whent there was no load on the line.
>
>What I am asking you, the world, is this BULLSHIT, or NOT????

It is Ohm's Law.  When there is plenty of current flowing in the neutral
wire, V = IR, so there will be a voltage drop along it.  When talking
about serious amounts of power, the resistance of a wire is *not* zero.
Nor is its inductance, for that matter.  What you are seeing sounds
pretty much normal to me.  If neutral were always precisely at ground,
we wouldn't need a separate ground wire.
-- 
"Maybe we should tell the truth?"      | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Surely we aren't that desperate yet." |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry