110vac Line Voltage - Where is it (was it) Used?

[industrialarts]

I have a 1962 Blonde Bandmaster on the bench. The tube chart says it's 110vac, which got me wondering - where is 110vac used? Fender used to sell to the military in the 60s for bases around the world, so my first thought was maybe Southeast Asia? I was looking at charts on the Interwebz and it seems that the Caribbean and maybe South America, too. But that's now, not 1962. It's something I have little knowledge of, so I was wondering if anybody would care to give me a quick lesson in 110v?

Thanks

 

[pucho812]

110VAC is U.S. old name for it. there are two main plug types type A which is 2 prong, type B which is 3 prong.
Currently in the United States, utility companies are required to provide a split-phase 240V feed to your house. When you get it down to single phase at your outlet it's 120VAC however due demand on the electrical grid you may not have a full 120VAC at your outlet and can easily be as low as 110VAC. For example, Where I live, on my bench I have a power strip that has a VAC meter built into it. on a good day I can be as high as 121VAC on a bad day I can be as low as 116VAC due to draw on the grid.
When we originally ac vs dc wars of the victorian era, westinghouse who funded tesla and his AC experiments adopted the 110VAC/60Hz due to it being less expensive to produce and that bulbs which were the main use for ac back then worked best between 100-110V according to them.

 

[Brian Roth]

Going from memory, 110 VAC was the USA standard when I first began tinkering with electronics back in the 1960's. Somewhere along the line, that standard became 117 VAC and eventually today's 120 VAC.

Bri

 

[ccaudle]

Someone posted a copy of an old (1976) paper that has a discussion of history of voltage levels:
208V Systems and ANSI C84 from 1976 ASHRAE Symposium

My summary:
Electrical distribution in the US was 110V in the early 20th century. 120V became the de-facto standard by the late 1940's, and was eventually standardized in ANSI document C84. Most motors were designed for 115V so they could run on 120V nominal, but still run down to 110V based on IR drop through the location wiring.
The ANSI standard listed the minimum and maximum values to expect on a 120V system as 127V and 110V at the service entrance, or 106V at the equipment. 120V - 10% is 108V, so that is basically 120V +5%/-10%.

As far as I have seen most equipment followed the ANSI recommendation of using 115V as the equipment labeling for use on 120V power, so I am surprised to see equipment from as late as the '60's labeled with 110V.

This is just a wild guess, but perhaps an attempt to be able to run in Japan at 100V and in North America at 115V? Even by 1962 nearly everywhere in North America has 120V, but that was at the distribution point, so probably 115V at the outlet was more common then.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I vaguely recall 117VAC also being nominal mains outlet voltage at one point.

Modern gear with switching supplies can accept a wide range of mains voltages, back in the day Peavey selling gear all around the world using conventional linear power supplies was a major PIA for designers.

JR

 

[shabtek]

https://groupdiy.com/threads/max-ac-voltage-for-old-us-110v-gear.13350/post-154426
Good discussion here

 

[sahib]

When I was in primary (late '60s) most part of European side of Istanbul used to be 110V, while the Asian side was 220V.

 

[Jim Boom]

110VAC is the line voltage in Japan.

 

[JohnRoberts]

110VAC is the line voltage in Japan.

We have Japanese forum members who can speak authoritatively...

AFAIK Residential Japan is 100/200VAC 50Hz and 60 Hz (by district).

Not that important with modern universal switching PS.

JR

 

[Rusan]

I've never seen my line voltage vary more than .2 volt from nominal 120V. But this afternoon, when checking for the presence of line voltage in something I was working on, it was only about 116V. I'm sure all the AC units in my area running nonstop during the 100F/37.8C heat have something to do with that...

 

[Whoops]

110VAC is the line voltage in Japan.

That's not correct, voltage in Japan is 100V

110V was the old USA standard like other members have said

 

[MidnightArrakis]

Going from memory, 110 VAC was the USA standard when I first began tinkering with electronics back in the 1960's. Somewhere along the line, that standard became 117 VAC and eventually today's 120 VAC.

Bri

That is how I also remember it!!!

 

[industrialarts]

Someone posted a copy of an old (1976) paper that has a discussion of history of voltage levels:
208V Systems and ANSI C84 from 1976 ASHRAE Symposium

I read most of the ANSI paper and the linked post in the other forum. Most of it jibed with what I remember from my youth. I was born in 1957 and I remember the AC voltage as being 115vac when I was young and then at some point it was reported as 117vac then 120vac sometime later. My dates don't coincide exactly with the dates in the ANSI but line voltage has never been exact, and I'm going from memory of something that was just accepted as is.

In reviewing a bunch of schematics I have for vintage Gibson and Fender amps, the line voltage - when designated - is anywhere from 110vac to 125vac, a Gibson Les Paul GA5 is spec'd to work from 105-125vac. So as for a standard for line voltage, there were plenty

None of this surprises me, it's just that the Blonde Bassman blew up it's power transformer and the owner wanted it re-wound. After re-installing, the voltages were quite a bit higher than expected (higher than the last time I worked on the amp, AFAIR) so that sent me looking around. I contacted the company that did the rewind to get a better understanding of how a rewind is done and they confirmed my belief that the xfmr is torn down and the windings are counted one-by-one and then rebuilt with the exact same amount of turns.

The owner got back to me and told me his research showed other amps of this vintage with the tube chart AC line voltage listed as 110vac as well, so really there is nothing wrong. It's just the vagaries of line voltage until the 120vac became the accepted and used standard across the US.

Thanks everyone for your replies, it generated some real useful information for me. Even after servicing hundred's of vintage amps, there are still some basics that can slip by

 

[Newmarket]

The question of Japan isn't easy. The voltage you get can vary significantly depending on the territory. In particular voltage on some of the islands can be different. Found this out some years ago when checking industrial analytics kit for international comparability. Seemed everything I asked about Japan the answer was different
The kit actually had a universal 84 to 264 Vrms input. But the front end PFC input was less efficient at lower input voltages so thermal dissipation was a concern. As well as fuse ratings.

 

[Whoops]

The question of Japan isn't easy. The voltage you get can vary significantly depending on the territory. In particular voltage on some of the islands can be different. Found this out some years ago when checking industrial analytics kit for international comparability. Seemed everything I asked about Japan the answer was different .

Just came from a Tour in Japan, and I travelled a long time there and also had tours there in the past.
The standard voltage at power outlets is 100 V, but the grids operate at different frequencies: 50 Hz in Eastern Japan and 60 Hz in Western Japan.

Japan has around 7000 islands, most of them pretty small, so I can’t talk about the voltage in all of them. But the main territory is 100V.

There’s reports that 200V exists in some places for some home appliances, but I never seen 200V anywhere in Japan