Electrical deviation for drives

R

Thread Starter

Reso

Hi,

We recently developed an automated welding system in India and delivered to Phillipines. I checked the voltage rating over the net and found it as 230VAC (like in India). However, upon landing there I was quite surprised to see that there is no neutral there. Phase-Phase for a 3 phase system is also 230V and neutral is absent in the entire plant. We had 2 machines of which 1 was a single phase 230VAC machine. We normally use 230V phase-neutral combination. However, I was not sure if I can use phase-phase 230V to drive the system comprising of SMPS, Servo drive, DC drives etc.I couldnt afford to have a burnt system in a foreign land.

Fortunately they had a step up transformer, hence we took Phase-Ground (110VAC) and stepped up to 230VAC and fed this into the system. This seemed ok, but now the machine had no ground as it seemed useless to connect a ground to the main body. Same thing we did with the 415VAC 3 phase machine by stepping up the voltage.

While the machine works perfectly and I returned back with a satisfied customer there, it has been lingering in my mind if I did the right thing. Life would have been much better if I could have used the ground to connect to the machine frame. I really need some insight into this problem.

Thanks
 
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