Running 3 phase 780s on single phase power (was RE: hams on classiccmp)

- People need to understand the danger in this - in any multiphase power system, the neutral current is the DIFFERENCE of the current in the individual phases. If the load is perfectly balanced, then the neutral current will be zero. But, if you run the same load from three separate single phase circuits and (worst case) the three circuits are all the same phase, then the neutral current will be the SUM of all three phase currents. That's 3 times what it would be otherwise and runs a serious danger of melting the neutral and starting a fire. Actually I thought the DEC power controllers had a circuit breaker in the neutral leg too just to prevent somebody from doing something like this. The split phase models do - are the three phase power controllers different ? Bob