Is this an accident waiting to happen?!

Stonefree69 · Oct 2, 2012

I came across this from Dx Hydro website that makes subpanels w/breakers outlets and timers for grow rooms:

I think the model name he's mentioning is Ecoplus from Sunlight Supply. I was actually going to get this model when I saw Dx Hydro had some options and more choices. I'm not affilitated w/Dx Hydro. I guess he says the ground is connected to the neutral from the pic. It's even less safe than leaving ground unconnected. I also thought it weird that Ecoplus said to plug the timer (that's the 2nd smaller black plug) into an existing outlet in your house. Even with sound wiring that sounds fishy. I figured the unit should power that.

Ichabod Crane · Oct 2, 2012

The smaller timer plug is 120 volt. The receptacles on the box are 240 volt. The relay in the box is triggered by 120 volt. You would be drawing from only one sully line of your 240 and that is not good. It can be done but it is not legal I believe. The alternative is to get a relay that is triggered by a 240 volt timer. They are less common, and could be wired into the box before the relay.

Iron_Lion · Oct 3, 2012

cocktail frank · Oct 3, 2012

dxhydro is absolutely right.
you cannot make 120v safely from a 3wire application without a neutral.
you need a 4 wire plug carrying a neutral to make that up to par.
that thing can't be UL or osha approved, blatant NEC violation.
neutrals and grounds can't be shared after the main.
if that was only 240v, it's aces.

qupee · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
DX Hydro is an idiot.

I see nothing wrong with that picture, I see 1 120v plug, connected to a breaker then connected to a 120v receptacle. and then there is 1 240v 3 wire plug, connected to a breaker then connected to 240v receptacles.

Infact DX's controllers weren't actually up to snuff from what I have seen.

cocktail frank said:
dxhydro is absolutely right.
you cannot make 120v safely from a 3wire application without a neutral.
you need a 4 wire plug carrying a neutral to make that up to par.
that thing can't be UL or osha approved, blatant NEC violation.
neutrals and grounds can't be shared after the main.
if that was only 240v, it's aces.

Iron_Lion - you wouldn't be able to see the problem. He's saying the neutral and ground are bonded in the box - that's a big no-no, and this picture can't reveal if that's the case. They could be or they could not be, I don't think this pic alone shows enough to tell.

cocktail frank - how do you get that its making 120 from 240 without a neutral? It has a separate 120 plug. That could be feeding the 120 outlets.

In any case, if the ground and neutral are connected in that box it's not good.

Or am I missing something here?

rives · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
DX Hydro is an idiot.

I see nothing wrong with that picture, I see 1 120v plug, connected to a breaker then connected to a 120v receptacle. and then there is 1 240v 3 wire plug, connected to a breaker then connected to 240v receptacles.

Infact DX's controllers weren't actually up to snuff from what I have seen.

IL, I think that your opinion of DXHydro is coloring your judgement. From what I get out of Sunlight Supply's site is that the 120v cord is timer power, and the receptacles are pulled off the 240v. As Frank said, it's completely illegal.

*edit* I do see some humor in DX complaining about being non-code compliant, however!

sso · Oct 3, 2012

might be a setup for some totally other system than the u.s one.

rives · Oct 3, 2012

sso said:
might be a setup for some totally other system than the u.s one.

Pretty doubtful with NEMA standard receptacles and cord caps. Those change with the "system".

Iron_Lion · Oct 3, 2012

rives · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
You dont know what you're talking about.
In a main panel of a house the ground and the neutral panels are bonded together.

Ground wire = groundING conductor

Neutral = groundED conductor

they each have their own purpose but essentially do the same job and resolve back the the same place, the ground.

I see 2 cords, 1 for 120v, 1 for 240v.

No, he is absolutely correct. The neutral and the ground are only bonded together at the main, anywhere else is a code violation and begging for ground loops.

Iron_Lion said:
There is no timer in that picture.

I believe that the timer is shipped loose and the 120v cord is a "trigger" cord between the timer and the relay in the can.

Iron_Lion · Oct 3, 2012

rives · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
The house isnt going to burn down if the the ground and neutral are bonded together. Either way the picture doesnt show that, I guess I would have to see the inside. For face value it without seeing the inside it would look correct.

Also, in some transformers XO neutral is bonded to ground.

No, the house won't burn but it can raise hell with any sensitive electronics in the house and potentially tickle you a bit in the bathtub. If I recall correctly, most of the early work on ground loops was done because dairy cattle were getting shocked by the automatic milking machines and refusing to "let down" their milk. Low level currents but high enough when applied to your teats and your standing in mud, apparently.

*edit* I believe that the cord was exclusively hooked to the relay, and the neutral wasn't shared. I don't think that sharing the neutral between the 120 and 240v circuits like that would be legal either - you could easily get dead if you got in series with the cord cap neutral when it was unplugged while the 240v circuit was hot.

Iron_Lion · Oct 3, 2012

rives · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
I'll have to look in to it further.

But you seem to be missing the point, there is 2 ground sources and 1 neutral source going to that box. you could use the same neutral to service the 120v receptacle and the timer and there is also at least 15 amps of 120v provided to that box to serve equipment..

the 240v is just straight 240, no neutral its not sharing anything with the 120v.

I might be, but going on memory from the first time I hunted this stuff down to see what DX was raising hell about, the "trigger cord" is only hooked up to drive the internal relay off of a wall-mount plug-in timer. The timer contacts are arguably not rated for the full circuit amperage - the idea was that they were drawing power from the 240v cord. Using this "trigger" neutral to derive 120v from the 240v circuit would be a code violation from a "switching the neutral" aspect if nothing else. If the 240v supplies the receptacle power, and the trigger cord neutral is used, the operator could easily be put in series with the load when the 240v is hot and the cord unplugged. Again, going by memory, the receptacle neutrals are tied to the 240v ground to avoid this but it is an improper usage of the ground as a neutral. The trigger cord is at most a 16 gauge and probably smaller cord - certainly not rated for the full amperage of the 120v receptacles.

I'll hunt around and see if I can turn up the documentation that I found the last time.

qupee · Oct 3, 2012

rives said:
No, he is absolutely correct. The neutral and the ground are only bonded together at the main, anywhere else is a code violation and begging for ground loops.

I believe that the timer is shipped loose and the 120v cord is a "trigger" cord between the timer and the relay in the can.

That's exactly what I'm fucking saying.

Iron_Lion said:
You dont know what you're talking about.
In a main panel of a house or building the ground and the neutral bars are bonded together.

Ground wire = groundING conductor

Neutral = groundED conductor

they each have their own purpose but essentially do the same job and resolve back the the same place, the ground.

I see 2 grounded cords, 1 for 120v, 1 for 240v.

Ground wires are not even required 100% of the time, i.e when using metal conduit you can bond to conduit or a metal box connected continuously by conduit.

There is no timer in that picture.

I'm well aware of the purpose of grounding and grounded conductors, as well as the fact that they are bonded in the main panel. You come off like a pompous ass.

Stonefree69 · Oct 3, 2012

rives said:
From what I get out of Sunlight Supply's site is that the 120v cord is timer power, and the receptacles are pulled off the 240v. As Frank said, it's completely illegal.

*edit* I do see some humor in DX complaining about being non-code compliant, however!

There are 120v recepticles as well run off a 120v 10 amp breaker in the box. Here's a .pdf user manual on the setup from Sunlight Supply: Ecoplus 30 and 50 amp timer box manual To quote from there: "The timer box controls the power supply to the receptacles." I'd have to assume that's for the 240v to run the lights. And the timer is run from a 120v outlet. People do run 120v digital timers to trip a relay to run lights. Either way, why even have to use another outlet outside the timer box for the timer?

Iron_Lion · Oct 3, 2012

qupee said:
That's exactly what I'm fucking saying.

I'm well aware of the purpose of grounding and grounded conductors, as well as the fact that they are bonded in the main panel. You come off like a pompous ass.

Im sorry you are sensitive, perhaps you should study up on wiring. you missed the obvious as well. that is straight 240v, that is 2 120 v phases and a ground. the 120v neutral and power conductor are supplied by black that cord.

all of this bullshit and the timer is a plug in, plugs into those receptacles.

and that trigger cord only supplies a 10 amp breaker, 16ga wire would be fine.

now what is not suitable is that cord supplies a 10amp internal circuit and the average household plug is a 15 amp circuit. they should have put in atleast a 15 amp 120v circuit.

Stonefree69 · Oct 3, 2012

rives said:
No, he is absolutely correct. The neutral and the ground are only bonded together at the main, anywhere else is a code violation and begging for ground loops.

Ahhh, ground loops! I've been into high-end audio for decades and ground loops are a major cause of speaker hum. It seems no matter how good the equipment is, many times hum comes from sharing circuits in the building wiring. Do a search on speaker hum causes.

That's also why you try to keep digital timers on separate circuits (like w/fluorescents). Also the Ecoplus 120v is on a 10 amp breaker, kinda flimsy.

rives · Oct 3, 2012

Iron_Lion said:
Im sorry you are sensitive, perhaps you should study up on wiring. you missed the obvious as well. that is straight 240v, that is 2 120 v phases and a ground. the 120v neutral and power conductor are supplied by black that cord.

all of this bullshit and the timer is a plug in, plugs into those receptacles.

and that trigger cord only supplies a 10 amp breaker, 16ga wire would be fine.

now what is not suitable is that cord supplies a 10amp internal circuit and the average household plug is a 15 amp circuit. they should have put in atleast a 15 amp 120v circuit.

Its a subpanel, IL. How do you suspect they are separating the feed between the 10 amp single-pole and the other breakers? The timer plugs into a wall receptacle, the trigger cord plugs into the timer, the other end of the cord drives the power relay which happily resides (illegally) inside the panel.

http://sunlightsupply.com/p-11312-30-amp-lighting-controller.aspx

Hammerhead · Oct 3, 2012

LOL I went through this a year ago.. I had to rebuild my controller from DXHydro. His controllers are not code compliant either. He does make a better product then the Sunlight. If you plan on having him make you one make it clear you want it code compliant.

rives is correct. The relays need to be in there own box to be compliant.. There are other issues to..Also the trigger from the timer only power the relay.contactor that's all. It doesn't go anywhere else

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Is this an accident waiting to happen?!

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