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The North American electrical system and grid is a lot more flexible, can have 120v in your home and have 240v at your disposal when extra power is needed.I bet that 50Hz Unimatic would dry even faster if run on a 240 volt 60Hz supply.
I wish the US would had gone to 220 volts at some point. If not 60Hz, 50Hz would have worked too but as long as it was somewhere between 220-240 volts. Preferably derived via two hot conductors but thats just me.
220-240 volts would have allowed for high powered heaters in front load washers and dishwashers making for faster, more efficient front load washers. Including the possibility of cold only hook ups. Appliances like dryers, stoves and ranges would be simpler by not having 120 volt components. And of course none of that grounding through the neutral stuff would ever have been likely.
FWIW, this is how I imagine an electrical panel in the US if everything was all 240 volts. 20 glorious double pole breakers
(Click to enlarge the pic)
I once had an argument with chicken farmer in Delaware, who insisted he'd been "an electrician all his life". He was certain that a 220V air conditioner was less expensive to run, because they drew less amps. I attempted to explain that the power company doesn't charge for amps, it charges for watts. Since we were looking at a 14,000btu 110V air conditioner at the time, I told him that unit was absolutely less expensive to run than a 220V equivalent, which would likely have pulled close to 2,000 watts... we nearly came to blows. (ok, hijack over with!)
Louis, you might want to edit the thread title to "Unimatic in NL / Electrical musing hijack".
