You just burned down his house. The neutral is tied to ground and for purposes of this discussion , it is ground. The 120 VAC in one leg flows first from the ground to hot and then the other way. The other hot does the same thing but at exactly the opposite time so the voltage between the two hots is 240 volts. 240 volt devices do not use the neutral at all. They do have a safety ground connection, just like a 120 volt device that is not double insulated. As we all know, the tool will work without the ground prong. Do not confuse this with three phase power where the AC legs are 60 degrees out of phase with each other. If you grab 120 volts off this, you do use the neutral between any of the three legs and neutral. Between any two of the three legs, you get 208 volts, not 240. I do this for a living. The question still remains how tolerant the tool is of the 10 hz frequency change. That varies; consult the manufacturer.
Correct. Now we are on the same page. When I heard hot to neutral I saw smoke and glowing wires. Sorry I misread what you were trying to say. To be honest I know little about European wiring though I have been there. I suspect that they have a 220 hot and a neutral rather than two hots like we have here for 220.
The whole world is on 220-240 except North America and Japan. They are on 100 volts. Those 220 plugs sure come in a lot of different configurations from country to country. With the wide use of switching power supplies in electronic gear they work anywhere and automatically correct the voltage so you only have to use an adapter plug. They are actually cheaper to build because they get rid of the big, heavy, expensive 50 or 60 hz step down transformer. Even the wall worts are made that way now.
memohis, you are correct it is not 2 phase. It is single phase 240 AC. The neutral is not used for 240 applications. I have a good one for you. I lived in an old apartment, built around 1940. There were two hot legs in the fuse box. Across them I only had 208. Could they have actually, have fed me 2 legs of 3 phase with other apartments using the third phase in various combinations to balance the load,1 and 2, 1and 3, 2 and 3? I bought a 208 to 230 step up transformer to get the most out of my window air conditioner that was rated 208/230 with adjusted BTU for each voltage. I guess it could have been just very low 240 but that is a lot.
The real small capacity stuff is not always a transformer but more like a 220 volt lamp dimmer or speed control that has been pre adjusted to produce the equivalent of 120 volts. I have one. They are somewhat load sensitive but the output is screw adjustable.
