Wiring a Step-Down Transformer for a Power Feed
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- Today we're finally getting around to wiring up a transformer to power my 120V mill power feed from a 240V circuit. It's about time.
Tools used in this video:
*This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated
Hammond 250VA Control Transformer (*eBay): ebay.us/ANTCkS
Hammond Control Transformer Fuse Kit (*eBay): ebay.us/e9ygh5
Engineers Computation Pad (Amazon*): amzn.to/3EKFZ9o
Milwaukee Fastback Folding Knife (Amazon*): amzn.to/3F4Ujs8
Wera Kraftform Screwdriver Set (Amazon*): amzn.to/2UzK6CL
Hammond 8x8x6in Junction Box (Amazon*): amzn.to/3f8F5rG
Knipex Automatic Wire Stripper (Amazon*): amzn.to/3aFM8oF
AM-10 Pneumatic Crimping Tool (Amazon*): amzn.to/3qZ52iV
Ferrule Crimper Kit (Amazon*): amzn.to/30hUfAQ
Wago 12AWG lever nut assortment (Amazon*): amzn.to/3hPMwFE
Fluke 375 FC True-RMS Clamp Meter (Amazon*): amzn.to/3C6aeoW
Raw Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
creativecommons...
Common questions:
1) Why didn't you run a neutral? This would require well over $100 worth of copper and a lot of work to replace cable in finished stud walls.
2) Why did you wire four outlets? There will eventually be three power feeds plus the DRO.
3) Shouldn't the white wire on the 240V input be black? Yes. It's common to color it black with a marker. I need to go back and do this.
I assume question 1 was the response to adding a neutral as apposed to building the neutral in on the original install? Question 2. Can't have too many outlets.
@@maxheadflow ahh... Yes. Including it 20 years ago would have been great. Copper was way cheaper then, too.
3. Electricity is color blind don’t worry about colors
James, why not mount the box to the side of the mill?
At some point in the future I'd forget and plug a shop vac in there and ruin my day. Resettable circuit breaker on the output?
For some reason this brought back memories of when I worked on drilling rigs. I still touch stuff with the back of my hand when I'm uncertain about the electrical situation of something. When I'm not confident in what I've wired up, it's still my habit to start with back of hand before grabbing it, just to stack the deck in my favor. :)
James, I'm a controls engineer by trade and I'm impressed. This is just how we create control power in our three-phase motor panels. Sometimes I need a lot of 120V and spec out a larger external mount transformer, but when I need to add a convenience outlet for a programming laptop outlet, this is exactly what we use.
Automation Direct is a great source for things of this nature.
Thanks! I order from Automation Direct a couple of times a month. :)
You never cease to amaze me with some specialty tool that you pull out- i.e. wire crimper
I bought it for another project that will require a couple hundred crimps.
"Of course not, that's silly... I did the project just to justify buying the Crimper"! Hahah!!! How many times have I done that too... I love your style James... Oh - & your content :)
On a serious note, watching you & a few other workshop guys in the US, makes me sooo grateful for our power standards here in Australia. We have 240V single phase or 415V 3 phase (yes some other occasional setups which are different, but generally speaking).
So you basically have 2 choices Single or 3 Phase. It's so much simpler.
A MILLION THANKS!!! 🙏 OH MAN, SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU!! GOD BLESS YOU & ALL!
“I’m not an electrician/expert” you crack me up. You’ve forgotten more things than I ever hope to know. You are one of the most analytical and detailed people I have ever encountered. Elon Musk should be afraid of you.
This is a great little project that shows the "right way" of handling this simple job. Well done, as usual.
Great video. Thank you. This afternoon I'm going to go and check what I did with the neutral when wiring my 440v 3ph lathe. I was so excited about the lathe I don't quite remember the wiring. 😀
All the holes in my wall will attest to my default of running new wires. This takes a brain like yours to figure out and will probably be very useful knowledge for later.
As an electrician great job. Good demo and lessons. Also great execution
James, Good job done your way I am not going to comment on the how because you did what is rite for your shop. I would do what I see as rite for my shop. Everyone else will try to blow smoke where they don't really know.
As always you explained it calmly and thoroughly and yet I was feeling entertained, not lectured. Congratulations to finishing the project ;)
Self tappers protruding into a box of electricity would not be my ideal scenario, but since it is your home shop, all good!
Well done as usual enjoyed the video. Sitting up there in the cold dry north corrosion free while all of us in the humid south rust.
Yeah. It's a burden, to be sure.
It's okay to remind us, to start doing those things we intended to do at some point. But good to see, that even someone as organized as you does procrastinate a little sometimes.
A little?
Nice job again James !!! Neat, concise, and no nonsense.
Nice vid. Just a suggestion-- it's bad practice to shoot a tech screw into a box. Having the sharp edge can cut your hands and your conductors. Use the appropriate length screw and put a nut on the inside (even having threads exposed is considered bad practice, over the years the exposed threads can wear through insulation, especially if the conductors move ( a flex run into a motor, etc.)
40 years ago when my shop was built as an extension on the rear of my home I ran the 240V mains in conduit and left a pull cord in the conduit. All additions I've made since then I always made sure I left behind spare pull cord. It sure beats having to dig out my wire snake when additions were made. On that note I can't imagine doing the original pull and deciding to save a buck by eliminating the 120V neutral. Not in this life!
Wakodahatchee Chris (WA2ERQ)
Conduit would make the job much easier after the fact. The original run was with 10/2 NMB. Clearly if I did it again, I'd use 10/3 and run a neutral.
You can make a square hole in big box and put a receptacles on it. More of work, but much cleaner look at the end.
Great post James (as usual). As the unit is shoved under the mill on a bare cement floor I suggest you put some rubber feet on it to prevent rust or a short if the floor gets overly wet.
I had a brief fantasy of you cutting a big hole in the side of the mill casting to mount the box in, but that would be way too much work.
There is such a hole and panel already, but that's where the flood coolant sump is located, and I may use that some day, so the humidity in there will be around 100%.
I suppose that you chose the 20 amp rated outlets because they had the connection type that you wanted. Otherwise, it's certainly overkill as 15 amp outlets would have served perfectly well.
Hi Clough
I’m always looking forward to watch your videos. You usually have good explanation and reasoning for the decisions you make during the project. This time you skipped the part why you decided to connect the one secondary to the ground. The transformer you installed works also like safety transformer, until you ground one terminal. The grounding doesn’t increase safety - it decreases. That’s why in difficult situations you use safety transformer. If one secondary wire will short to metal part of the machine you will have the same case as you deliberately did. You are quite smart and I expected that it is some reason you did this. Thanks
Watch the video again. I explained it in detail. It's required by code because without bonding the neutral, there is no way for a fault current to re-enter the circuit to blow the fuse.
Great video, You might want to protect your box there on the floor. The shop that I work in had the same set up . The problem is metal chips down on the floor. You can imagine what happen. Drilling chips make a interesting moment.
Seconded. 2-gang in-use covers are cheap insurance
nice work, a further safety step is that you can put the box on some feet (plastic or rubber) for elevation just in case of a liquid spillage on the floor (for whatever reason) especially that it is there on the ground with no direct line of vision. wish u all the best
Well done James !
James,
I liked the setup with the transformer and the outlets. My concern would be: what happens if you have to emergency stop the mill? The table will continue to move.
When I did this for my mill, I pulled the 240v power after the contractor in the mill control panel, so the table would stop moving if I estopped the mill.
I also understand there may be warranty implications, but I also worry about safety.
Just a thought....
This mill has a motor switch. It has no ESTOP or contactor.
Love the mill
Hi James, I have 2 small issues, I know how much you love criticism…lol .
I usually when grounding the neutral on the transformer use the green wire from the neutral term to the ground so just looking at the transformer it’s obvious that the neutral is grounded instead of having to see where the second white wire is going.
I realize in your panel it’s easy to see but in more complicated panels it’s not as easy.
Also with only a 250 va having 4 outlets might be tempting to overload it and blow the fuse.
Yeah, I think using a green wire here would be clearer. I was thinking about panels I've seen where white and bare wires go to a common bus bar. I plan to eventually use all four outlets.
15:03 "The funniest part is, you can't tell if that's a joke." Au contraire! I'm not falling for this trick. You gave us the answer a couple weekends ago. To quote "The other reason I wanted it is because it's a tool and I want to own them all" You are the man I perspire to be! 😁
Good job James, and you have a really awesome set-up there.👏🏻👏🏻👌🏻
This would have been a great opportunity to build a custom metal enclosure that held the transformer and outlets.
Another very well presented video .... Thanks for sharing ... Stay safe...
Very interesting video. I have seen dozens of 120/24V control transformer systems with the neutral of the 24V secondary bonded. I have not to my knowledge worked on a 240/120 control transformer with the secondary bonded as shown in this video, but it should be the same in principal. Will have to dig a bit deeper next time I see it (same should apply for three phase equipment with control xfrmers).
I was in a situation where our control transformer was not giving us the correct output so what we did was connect out x2 to the panel neutral and then we bonded it to ground
You bonded the panel neutral to ground at a second point? Eek.
Another great video!
He who dies with the most tools wins, you are quickly getting close to the lead.
James, do what we do here in the sticks, just zip tie a white wire onto the conduit from your panel to your mill, hook it up and your good to go. LOL
The wires are in insulated walls, so there's nothing to zip tie to.
You need to bond the box to the other grounds in the wego.
I don't know how much digging around you had to do to source all the parts, but boxes, control transformers, and at least some of the wiring bits are easily available form Automation Direct, and they often have 2 day shipping. The prices are reasonable too, and you know you are getting genuine stuff.
I'm a little concerned about plugs on the floor. In my experience that is where they get wet, oily, and full of chips swept up or blown around on the floor.
Yeah, Automation Direct is great.
Big fan of your channel. The input wiring to your control power transformer primary are both ungrounded conductors so you should avoid using a white insulated conductor because this is always assigned to grounded conductors (neutral) in North America. I dont exactly know what is powering this box but since you have explained that both transformer primary conductors are being fused, I can infer that they are assumed to be ungrounded. I would recommend just adding some red electrical tape or heatshrink at all termination points for that white insulator (on the primary circuit) to denote that this is indeed an ungrounded conductor (L1 - black, L2 - red).
X2 on this comment, that way your install is code compliant per the NEC 200.4, Awesome work as always!
This is good advice. Normal practice is to color the white wire black with a marker.
@@Clough42 Not black - incorrect; white should be marked red in this instance. The NEC requires the white (neutral) wire to be marked (tape, heat shrink, whatever) on both ends and at any junctions with usually red, but never black because there already is a black wire for the other 120V phase). Black would indicate both were the same phase at the same potential. If you check the NFPA 70 Handbook you will see you have created what is known as a "separately derived system" for the 120V feed.
@@jpcallan97225 I think that's true for 3-phase, but for single phase 220V, coloring the white wire black is common practice. I have several circuits like this in my house installed and inspected during construction.
@@Clough42 Thank you for the reply. That would be true if the other wire in a 240V single phase trio were red, white and green/bare, but as an example 12-2 NM-B (Romex) is almost always black, white and bare, while 12-3 NM-B is black, red, white and bare, but never two blacks, white and bare. What you are seeing in your home wiring is a switched lighting circuit where white is used as a "traveler" instead of a neutral. The whole idea is preventing an unintended 240V short. The color code is key to avoiding an unintended phase-to-phase interconnect.
I'm retired now, but I did electrical designs for small to medium sized data centers with three phase UPS systems and diesel generators as part of my IBM mainframe consulting practice. I have a 60 KW Cummins model DGCB genset and automatic transfer switch at my house. I'm fairly familiar with things electrical.
I'd like to speak with you on the phone about your video on the phase converter if that would be possible. I do enjoy your videos and learn a lot from them.
Great vid.
I put a little blob of hot glue in a nut driver to help it hold a nut for such jobs (I use it as a wedge, I don't glue in the nut.)
Great tip, for when you have to hold the driver vertically. In this case, the quick n easy solution is simply to turn the box on its side.
Nice work. Ciao, Marco.
I admire your standards of workmanship, James. BTW, I have a similar drive motor that has the annoying property of traveling at different speeds, with the same setting, depending on direction. I’d sure like to improve that. (I think Quinn mentioned it in a past video) Have you seen this?
I saw her video. I haven't observed that in the Align feed. I haven't paid very close attention, though.
Nice🙂
It's been a while since I've done any transformer supplies but since transformers are primarily inductive devices they wont have in-rush current. it's typically the load on the output that cause the in-rush current. There maybe a very small amount of current from capacitive coupling but I'd expect it to be very,, very low.
The Internet disagrees. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inrush_current
"When a transformer is first energized, a transient current up to 10 to 15 times larger than the rated transformer current can flow for several cycles. Toroidal transformers, using less copper for the same power handling, can have up to 60 times inrush to running current."
Separately derived system, bond at neutral (like you are).
Great video! Last week I installed a new plug on my jigsaw, now it runs backwards:')
"I didn't buy this tool just for that project, that's silly. I did this project to justify buying this tool." 😂🤷♂
Are you concerned about rogue metal swarf particles (the natural enemies of electrical insulation) getting into the open receptacles?
I've found that some equipment have internal transformers with more than one input option. But then yes, you'll probably void the warranty.
Good tip. I just re-checked the circuit diagram, and I don't think this one has a multi-tap transformer in it. In fact, the manual actually calls for an external control transformer for operating on high-voltage mills.
For me, that would not be a joke. It would be funny because it's true. And also because it's an conscious choice, not an impulse. Nowadays, at least. Or so I tell myself...
What is the spec for the fuses you used on this project. FYI hubby installed it for our setup in Kenya so am able to use 110 tools like sanders, jigsaw etc. what I haven’t been able to use is my compound sliding saw or table saw. We have a Bussmann Fuse Current Limiting, Dual Element Time Delay, Midget Cartridge, Time Delay 2 Amp 250 V 13 and a 15 Amp but neither works for the saw. Is this the wrong fuse?
Great video... as always, but I was just wondering what happend to the pm-940
It's a sad story. It didn't work out between us.
I want to power a single-story house 3bed two bath 120volt on each leg. what size fuses what I use for this 250va transformer ?I live in California,
Great video, thanks! Could you comment on which type of fuses did you use, and maybe provide an affiliate link?
Question, I have a 5KW 230v inverter charge controller 48v , what’s you’re thought’s me using a 100A MTO Transformer 220-440 inlet & 110-120 output for a house inverter for emergency use only my battery banks are lithium phosphate 3.2v 280Ah feeding the inverter ?
Informative as always James but did you get a copyright license from ToT to use your hands this way?
Could I use this to go from 120 to 240?
I’m no electrician by any means I know jack about it but am I nuts to think that now that box is live to ground when you run anything 110 from that outlet?
Howdy from Texas James, my question has nothing to do with the electrical but the square tubes under your mill. Did you find the table height just a bit to low so hence the additional height? If so what was the increase in height. Looks like 4" or so. Thanks
Why not use a step down voltage converter like one you would use in Europe with USA appliances. A 1.5 to 2 KW should work?
I've always been very suspicious of those. They come with copious warnings to only use them with hair dryers and not anything electronic. I assume (but don't know for sure) that they're doing something unsavory, like using a diode to cut the total power (but not the voltage).
Transformers high primary/feed sides are identified with the letter X, & the low secondary/load sides are identified by the letter Y. Not sure how you did this. Also: The primary side would have 240V (twice the voltage ... by a SERIES connected across the entire winding. Then the secondary would be stepped down (in half) to 110V by tapping the middle of the winding ... which serves as the neutral to both short 110V windings. You some how made it work by placing the neutral connection to the hot side of just 1 of the secondary windings !!! 🤔
I think you're confused because you're assuming this is a 120/240 to 120/240 transformer. It's a 240/480 to 120/240, so both primaries are connected in parallel (240V), and both secondaries are connected in parallel (120V). I showed the jumpers installed directly on the terminals at around 7:58.
Still have no idea how a transformer works..it's magic right.
Not magic. Just Physics. Go get a college level Physics Book, then look at the Electricity and Magnetism chapters. Seriously, it is not that hard to understand how it all works. My dumbass was able to figure it out, at age 19. I bet you could understand it all, in less than a couple of weeks.
I guess this is a stupid question, but why not just plug in an extension cord to a 110v outlet, and run your 110v accessories off that? The only reason I can imagine is wanting the 110v circuit to be coupled to the 240v circuit so the 110v drops if you lose 240v, but wouldn’t a magnetic relay take care of that?
I don't want an extension cord draped across the shop.
Dear jsmes I've been ordered ELS through ebay....
Like to know how to set with my own Lathe Machine...
Can you please help me out to install the software....?
There's a whole series of videos, and documentation on GitHub.
Off subject why the risers ? how tall? did you do a video?
They add 4", putting it at about the right height for me to use comfortably. It's just two pieces of 4x6x3/8"-wall rectangular tube with holes drilled in it to anxhor the mill and to mount the feet.
So what kind of power consumption does a transformation like this use when idle?
I assume it will be lower without a load on it and increase as the load increases. But there will always be energy or current flowing on the primary side by the nature of how it work.
Ot was thus explained in the video and I misses it somewhere?
In _theory_ an idle transformer that is correctly rated draws no power of it's own. In actuality it generates some small amount of heat and sound energy, so is consuming power. I'd guess that a transformer this size is probably using less than 5 watts, probably 2 watts or less.
20:00 did i get this right? there is no mechanical difference in the 120 and 240 Volt outlets as mechanical coding so you can accidently plug in to the wrong outlet?
No. The 120V outlets are NEMA 5-20 and have a vertical hot blade. The 240V outlets are NEMA 6-20 and have a horizontal hot blade. They aren't physically compatible.
15:01 don`t see the joke,thats how i plan all of my projects
I am glad to be in a country that doesn't need this. Seems a lot of effort for a plug. Seems like a centre-tapped auto transformer would have been easier and smaller though.
Better late then never :P
So why would you do this vs running a separate 120v circuit from your panel?
Wire, time, closed walls, full panel. The manual for the power feed specified it for this situation.
I am not sure that I have ever run a neutral for 240 split phase that I did not eventually use.
Watching you use that crimper raised the hair on the back of my neck. It looks like it would crimp a finger just fine.
Despite being disallowed in many applications, I would tin the stranded wire. For permanent installations, I sometimes use a soldered wire-nut connection.
Definitely don't tin the wire before crimping. The crimp terminal is designed to compress and retain stranded wire. If you tin first, the solder will slowly flow over time and the crimp will become loose. When this happens, the joint will heat, softening the solder further, until it fails catastrophically. I've had it happen on a 3D printer. The other problem is that soldered connections do not handle vibration well. The solder ends at some point in the wire, and all of the stress gets concentrated there. Over time, the wires crack and break. This is why you don't see solder terminals in automotive applications.
Great video . Did your power supply wire have a neutral and ground from your building ? If so don’t you just have to bond/ground the transformer base only because it’s tied to the neutral back at the panel ?
I'm not an electrician either, but I'd probably have used a GFCI outlet on your transformer output, since you're bonding the ground and neutral together at the transformer.
Not really-- it would be more essential to have a GFCI if you DIDN'T bond the neutral to the ground in the transformer. If you didn't bond them together, the neutral wouldn't be a neutral (i.e. a grounded conductor), it would be a separate ungrounded conductor (hot), until somewhere down the line, you had a ground fault (one of your conductors touched something grounded), and then from that point on, it would use the new grounding location as the ground reference. You would have no idea anything had happened-- it wouldn't blow up or shock anything. But years later, you might have another ground fault on the other conductor, and BAM, you have 120v compared to your other, randomly grounded, conductor. Since that first ground reference is probably a high impedance path, it would sit there and conduct current, but not enough to actually burn out the fuse, and the new ground fault would either start heating up and cause a fire, or just sit there at 120v potential, waiting for you to touch it and become an additional path to ground and get shocked or even die. It might never pull enough current to open that 2amp fuse, but it only takes 5 milliamps of current to trip a GFCI, so the GFCI would be even MORE important in an improperly grounded situation.
@@MrCurstesy I'd have done both. The new 120V hot/neutral are not protected by an upstream GFCI (if there is one), and the new outlets should be protected by a GFCI.
@@trainman419
Yeah, it never hurts to have a GFCI-- my correction was because you said he should use a gfci "since" he bonded the ground and neutral, making it sound like he needs additional protection because he did something that might be wrong. He did it right, and he would only truly need that additional protection if he DIDN'T do it right.
Using a GFCI would be fine, and might add some protection for certain failure scenarios, but there's nothing about bonding the neutral that makes this so. Your home is fed from a transformer, and the neutral is bonded in the main panel for this reason.
Mostly nice job, but you made a big mistake. Input voltage side has to be on top. That way the voltage flows down with gravity . You’ve got it mounted at a (roughly) 45 degree angle, and it’s pointed up. You’re gonna have some wonky voltage under load.
Ummm 🤔…does the voltage fluctuate according to the cosine of the transformer angle?
Pro tip: the easiest way to fix this is to tilt the camera.
@@Clough42 MIND BLOWN!
That sir, is why you have a RUclips channel.
Well 💩. Now I need a pneumatic crimper.
It seems unwise to have a quad receptacle of 20A outlets behind a 2A-fused transformer, rather than having a single 15A receptacle for the power feed. Of course it's your home shop and hidden under the mill so not too many people are going to try to use it as a convenience outlet to plug in a vacuum cleaner, but it isn't best practice, and it's hard to see why it's a good idea, unless you have future 120V mill accessories planned? [Plug in a power strip or a triple tap if a temporarily need arises.] (Indeed, there's a good argument for hardwiring the power feed because of the fusing). It's probably worth it to add a label to the quad box reminding you of the 2A maximum, perhaps with a Separately Derived System tag too. Given the $85 BOM here (not counting the $250 crimper), it seems like re-running the 240V circuit to the mill with a neutral (or adding a neutral if it's in conduit) would have been a good alternative (and it would save the magnetizing current for the transformer as well as its hum), even if it involves holes in walls and getting a little dirtier.
Given the cost of copper, the transformer is actually cheaper today for my situation. The mill will eventually have three power feeds plus the DRO, hence the four receptacles.
He mentioned a future DRO which seems reasonable. But you don't need four outlets for that I reckon. But add a small LED lamp perhaps and now it starts to make sense. I think I would install deterrent covers myself as a reminder. Otherwise, worse case is a fuse blows and that's hardly a disaster.
So my only silly question is, why didn’t you just get a 240v power feed in the first place? 🤣
Are they available? I didn't see that as an option.
@@Clough42 yep, well we have 240v versions in the uk, so I presume they are…
The only things i didn't like from an electricians perspective is those little orange connectors and your outlets should've been wrapped with electrical tape to insulate the screws from accidental contact. Otherwise, as usual, I love your work.
👍😎👍
Why didn't you pull 110 from one of the 240 legs? The only thing I wouldn't like about that is using the ground as a neutral but you used the ground for that anyway. interesting. Just finished my els! your the best! I should buy a lathe. THANKS!
I am wondering why not pull 110 from a shop wall outlet, after watching this I am probably violating some code doing this in my home shop.
I am running older 3 phase machines with rotary phase converter. The commercial shop I purchased the mill from was running the power feed from
a wall outlet.
So you did this project to justify the crimper. Did you also forgo pulling a neutral to the mill to justify the buying the transformer, enclosure, et al? 🤔
Just a little comment, did you ask a certified electrician about this before or after building it? In other words, does it meet the NEC codes?
I make no representation about the NEC. Note that this is a plug-in device, and not a part of the building wiring.
@@Clough42 , True, but the question remains, did you ask a certified electrician? Not a suggestion that anything was wrong, or needed NEC certification.
@@BruceNitroxpro So Bruce, only "qualified experts" can do things right. The rest of us are just ignorant fools, that don't recognize the need/brilliance of "qualified experts". I bet you like Anthony Fauci.
What size fuses did you use for primary and secondary?
Would you do it the right way like this if you weren't filming it? I always bodge these things together from scrap I have laying around and sure, some of these things are sketchy, but because I am the only person to use them, I know not to poke around in the wrong places.
I generally try to do things properly--especially on something that will be around long-term. The biggest reason to do things "right" is just so the next person who comes along will make correct assumptions so they don't get hurt. 10 years from now, that person could be me. Also, fire is bad.
So basically the transformer box is a sub-panel.
I don't know if it qualifies as a sub-panel, since it plugs into a receptacle.
@@Clough42 on second thought you don't ground and neutral in a sub-panel. It's like it's a second main panel.
@@mikemarriam I see where you're going with that, but I don't think the analogy is useful. This is a control transformer., and it requires a bonded neutral for safety.
Or just run a neutral!? Surely that would have been cheaper and easier!?
50' of 10-3 NM-B is well over $100 where I live.
And what was the cost of the box , transformer, sockets, and .... crimper !! 🤣
I know you enjoy troll comments so here is one for you. In the last few seconds you say you are happy not to have a wire drug across the shop. The correct word is dragged. Drug is not the past tense of drag.
He draggededed across the floor according to my grandson
Using "drug" in this context is common in parts of the US, and is generally considered a feature of dialect. So... Is criticizing someone for their dialect a form of linguistic discrimination?
@@Clough42 Well put, James.
I think cutting a square hole the box and mounting the outlets directly would have looked cleaner
I thought about plasma CNC cutting the actual receptacle profile openings in the box side. I might have done it if the box didn't have knockouts.
@@Clough42 looks like there was just about enough room to fit the receptacles with out interfering with the knockouts
Can anyone explain this electrical code? On the mill side he had two hot wires and a ground. Between any of the two hot wires and ground he has 120 volts but he is not allowed to use this, why?
The ground is for safety only. While you could technically use it to power a device, this would certainly not meet code.
consider what happens if the earth wire breaks somewhere.
@@fuzzy1dk This is the reason. The grounded case of everything downstream from the break would suddenly be live at 120VAC.
@@Clough42 why connect neutral to ground? Isn't that why you use a transformer. The way it's wired now is the same as one leg to hot, neutral to ground.
To be more clear. The code is neutrals only connect to ground at the main panel.
Ok I’m not a genius by any means. But this project seemed to be way over thought and over worked. Someone please let me know. But my thoughts are. Wouldn’t it have been easier to run 120v 12/2 wire on a 15 amp circuit breaker Yeah the wire size is over kill a bit but I like 12/2 fir anything 120v 20 amp and 15 amp.
In order to judge what is easier, you would need to see where the 12/2 wire would be installed. If it's easier in your case, that's great.
@@Clough42 yeah I know I’m not exactly there in your shoes. I was just looking for an answer as to why you chose the way you did it. Also and I’m sure you’ll agree that sometimes the easier way is actually the hard way. But I get what your saying
I also just wanted to find out if running separate 12/2 on a 15 amp breaker would be able to run along side of what you are doing with it. I wouldn’t see why not but I don’t know everything about the unit your working with and maybe the was an inherent reason why you had to go the way you did
Oh, come on. Just use one hot leg and use the ground as a neutral. What are you, chicken? It'll be fine. They wind up in the same place anyway.
It'll be fine until it isn't. Thinking about adding flood coolant to a system without a safety ground...
You should never install a step down transformer if you can run a separate 120 volt 20 amp breaker using 14 or 12 gauge wire from the breaker box.
"Never" is a strong statement. Do you have a reason why?
Aren't you violating code using 20 amp receptacle with 14ga wire? It's a bit of a moot point with 2 amp fuses protecting everything, but...
As you point out, it's not an issue. If you have a source for 2A outlets, let me know.
en france nous ne mettont jamais la terre relier au neutre cela serait égal a 5,2v
Tape your receptacles
Aside from the excellent content of your videos, it has been impressive to see how much more skilled at editing and comfortable in front of the camera you've become. Many channels have trouble finding the balance between detail and respecting the viewer's time, and your effort really shows.
Leviton should consider making a wireless neutral terminal box. With WiFi and an iPhone app to control it. 😃