VAX 6000 3-phase conversion (was: Re: Three Phase)

Hi again, Thanks for those who commented on this power issue. This evening, I have given it a shot using my spare parts. I took the box that has the thick 3-phase cable. I opened the rear of that box and removed this cable in order to attach one that I can actually plug in somewhere. This is what I saw: +----------------------------------------------------+ | -------------------- | | +--------------------+ / GND * \ | | | | / \ | | | | |Bl* *Br| | | | | | Bk* *Bk | | | | | +----------------------+ | | | | | | | | +------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------------------+ +------------------------+ | | | +-----------------------------------------------------+ After opening the cover, the cable is hooked to 5 screws. There is one yellow/green protective ground wire, even laveled GND. Then there is a blue (Bl) wire, two black (Bk) wires and one brown (Br) wire. I probably don't understand this color coding and I was also surprized to find four not three wires besides protective ground. I then hooked this up as follows: P1 ------------* Bl * Bk GND ----------------* GND * Bk P2 ------------*Br that is I connected the protective ground with my protective ground wire, and P1 to where the blue line used to be and P2 where the Brown line connected. I left the ex-black connectors open. Closed the cover and plugged it in. This cover has three control lights labeled PL1, PL2, and PL3. I noticed that only PL1 was lit. Then I pushed this T shaped main switch in to engage and using a potentiometer I checked for AC and DC potentials at about every receptacle on this box. What I found was disappointing. I did not find any DC potential anywhere. (I may not have tried every combination though.) Is it possible that this box does not have any bridge rectifier in it so all I can expect is AC here and there? Is there any documentation around what all these many receptacles are for and how the pins are connected? Finally, I recognized three standard computer receptacles, you know, the ones we used to have on PC's power units and where one would plug in the monitor power. These receptacles look as follows: 3 +------+ / || \ | | | || || | +----------+ 1 2 I think what one would expect is that 3 is protective GND, and 1 is Null (N) and 2 is 110 V phase (P) (or 1 P and 2 N, doesn't matter.) However, that was not what I found. I found that two of the receptacles has 110 V between 2 and 3 (but not 1 and 2), and the third receptacle had 110 V between each 1 and 3 and 2 and 3 and 220 V between 1 and 2. So, something is screwy. I stopped fiddling for tonight. May be you have some suggestions about what I should do. My plan is to try connecting things differently, using the two Black lines instead of the Brown line ... but I'm fairly clueless. Also, I am not sure I hooked up my circuit breaker box in my basement correctly. I have one spare 220 V 60 A 2-phase (dryer hookup) line in my basement. I attached a 2-phase circuit breaker box as follows: B C W R L O H E A P I D C P T | K P E | | E | | | R | | | | | +-------+ | | | | +---+ | +--+ | | | | | | o*oooo*ooo | | | =*============== | | | ===================* The 60 A uplink line comes with four wires, a black, a red, a white and a blank copper line. I tested that black is P1, red is P2, white is N and the copper line's got to be protective GND. As you can see, for lack of any other connector facility in the breaker box I have connected the white line (N) with the protective GND line. Should I have done this differently, like leave the N line open? However, this shouldn't have an effect on hooking up the VAX, or should it? Would I not need to connect some N wire so that those receptacles are powered correctly? any thoughts appreciated, -Gunther