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Originally Posted by simple dave
Wow. That's a killing shock. You were lucky to survive. What were you doing? I thought it illegal to enable elctric current over 230v in private homes...
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It
IS legal in Europe.
If you are a smal house owner here in My country you are very likely to have a big industrial socket sonewhere in the basement or a garage. Many people have big circular saw (for cutting wood for stove or a fireplace), or a concrete mixer, or a welder.
You see, small appliances use 230V - so called "one phase"
Bigger appliances line welders, portable concrete mixers, circular saws, (some) electrical stoves and sone other power hungry appliances use "three phase" 400V power. It consists of 4 wires. You have 3 "live" wires L1, L2, L3 and one "non live" wire N (and a safety grounding wire PE).
Between L1 and N there is 230V tension. also between L2 and N and L3 and N.
but if you measure the tension between L1 and L2 or L3 and L3 or L1 and L3 you get 400V.
In the past, what we now call 230 was labeled as 220V and what we now call 400V was labeled 380V. The tension is the same, juts the measurement system has changed.
So most of the households ARE connected to 400V "three phase" system, here in Europe. You just do not have that big industrial wall socket. But some of your ordinary wall sockets are connected to L1 and N and others to L2 and N - so the load on the power grid is balanced. Or perhaps one apartment is connected to L1 and N ant the next one to L2 and N and your neighbour above to L3 and N