I have been wondering this for a while now, and haven’t really found any answers that I understood. The way I think of it is that when you measure voltage from line to neutral you are kind of measuring “halfways from” the winding of L1 (where you only measure over one winding) to the shared point of the other phases instead of when you measure from line to line and you measure over both the windings in between them.
Tl;dr In a 230V distribution, why does measuring from line to line give 230V but line to neutral gives 120-130? And why the magical number sqr(3)? In my mind it should be 0.5 .. :p
Bonus question: Does anyone have a physical picture of how the transformer is connected to the consumer? I have seen the diagram, but I’m wondering what the cabling looks like in real life
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For your bonus question, [here’s what the inside of a typical small dry-type transformer looks like](https://iaeimagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019_07_hump-ph1.jpg). The yellow, brown, and orange wires are the three phases of the 480V high-side connections, and the thicker black, red, and blue wires are the three phases of the 208/120V low side. The white wire is the neutral for the low side, and the green wire is the ground. Larger transformers might have multiple wires of each color run in parallel to accommodate the larger current, and most transformers you see outside will have their windings (the yellowish coils behind the wires in the picture) immersed in a liquid to insulate and cool them. These types will also usually have an internal barrier separating the high side and low side connections.
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