Splitting up and re-tagging [high-voltage] questions

Question

In my EE.SE search today, I noticed that high-voltage is a really... bad tag. Not the tag itself, but the fact that it's managed to propagate into so many not-high-voltage questions. I'd say 2 of the 10 most recent questions would qualify. The individual voltage tag is also odd but I see we'd like to off that one altogether: Tags: Voltage, current, and power (oh my)

I'd, possibly, like to offer some alternatives. We currently have high-voltage and low-voltage tags according to the IEC definitions but we don't have extra-low-voltage to round out the classes. Those three tags would leave us with a split of

1. (HV) >1000 V
2. (LV) 50-1000 V
3. (ELV) <50 V

These are nice but I don't think these lines drawn in the sand by IEC play nicely with the questions on EE.SE. Namely, there's too many questions that hover in that 30-60 V range that shouldn't be lumped in with 750 Vrms questions. I think we would actually benefit from using some more intuitive voltage categories instead. Something like this:

1. high-voltage (>1000 V)
2. industrial-voltage (208, 347, 480, 600 V)
3. mains-voltage (120 V, 240 V)
4. low-voltage (0 to 50 V)

For the purpose of the site, I don't think it's necessary to delineate medium voltage, high, extra, ultra high voltage, transmission, or distribution levels. Anyone asking those questions will likely get the attention of the right people by tagging high-voltage or power-engineering.

Ultimately, I'd just let to set up a watch on actual industrial and high voltage level questions, occasionally look at some mains levels, and ignore questions tagged as high-voltage when someone is using 24 V with a some micro-controller.

Answer 1

While I, personally, like and use the low, mains, industrial, high descriptions, there is a big problem with 'low voltage' being used differently in this context, and in the IEC context. That would lead to confusion, and bring our tags into disrepute.

Rather than argue about what 'low voltage' should mean, how about being numerically explicit? Not only is below 50 V explicit, it's self descriptive, and it's not a recognised description, so it doesn't conflict with IEC nomenclature, or any of the other electrical authorities.

If done purely numerically, there is a potentially problematic overlap between the 51 V to mains 240 V and industrial from 208 V. However, here we want to catch people handling 'domestic mains', as distinct to 'industrial mains', which incidentally will often be three phase.

There is no need to be consistent and use only numerical or only descriptive tags, a hybrid approach would be fine.

below 50
50 to mains
mains
industrial - perhaps this one is superfluous?
50 to 1000
above 1000

I feel it would be useful to distinguish between domestic mains, and industrial mains, from the point of view of assessing the skill level of the OP. The former will tend to not know what they are doing, yet still be wanting to mess with lethal voltages. The latter should know what they are doing from a physics/electricity point of view, but may not have the required certifications in order to make those changes at a 'place of work', which will often have safety regulations that must be adhered to.

There's another physically useful boundary at 10 kV (ish) where corona control starts to become significant (the ozone-smelly stuff, not the virus).

Answer 2

The tag description seems to say "yeah, that's the IEC definition, but there are many definitions".

I think the tag is fine, in that you'd be hard-pressed to find a better tag in many situations.

As an example, if I see something tagged [op-amp] [high-voltage], I probably know what I will find in such a question, regardless of any IEC definition.