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Re:Museum of Plugs and Sockets by jacquesm on Thursday November 25, 2021 @09:56AM (#29341855)
This is an incorrect interpretation of the differences between the two systems.

In the EU the 380V (now nominally 400V) relates to tri-phase, the 240V to the voltage between a phase and ground.

Tri-phase power in the United States is available to residential consumers and very light industry (say a small farm) at a number of different voltages up to 480V.

The 240V in the united states is between two 'lives' that are both 120V and that are usually delivered on a center tapped transformer with the center being the neutral. Adding those two together gives you the 240V, but it all comes from a single phase, it's just a center tapped transformer with a 240V winding as the secondary.

You can easily see this when you look at your typical drop transformer that will take a 10KV low voltage distribution line to domestic voltages, where three phase power is required you'll see three transformers in a bank, one for each phase. A typical residence will have only one because in North America single phase power is the norm for distribution.

https://www.mytpu.org/wp-content/uploads/wires.jpg

Is pretty typical in NA.

So a typical drop will have a distribution neutral and a single distribution phase going in to the transformer and three wires coming back out: L1, N and L2 with L1 and L2 being the outside legs of the winding. In your distribution panel you then add your residential ground.

Re:Museum of Plugs and Sockets by jacquesm on Thursday November 25, 2021 @02:29PM (#29344203)
bugfix: the 240V to the voltage between a phase and ground

This is possible, but more likely is a phase-to-phase in a delta configured transformer. In that case there is no ground delivered to the distribution panel, just two phases (or three).