Can I rewire this to 10/3?

[Amoeba]

This is my third grow with this little box and it's been good to me but I need to extend the cord, or better yet completely get it off the dryer outlet ( 3 prong ). I only use 3k of lights and have never used the 120 plugs at all.

Can I upgrade this to 10/3 wire? Neutral to ground bar okay or a no-no in this little thing?

Doing some googling I came across THIS pretty much bashing the box but there was a reply stating he spliced into the actual dryer outlet, I'd rather not do that. I can either rewire this the correct way with the correct wire, or buy a newer used box.

I have room on my main box to add a double pole breaker on there and it's pretty close to where ideally I'd like the box to be so I wouldn't have to run the wire too far. Thank you.

 

[FireIn.TheSky]

If you want to just use it for 240v there is no need for a neutral. 240v is 2 hots and a ground.

That box is messed up because they use the 3rd wire as a ground and a neutral. Now technically ground and neutral go back to the same place and they are kind of the same thing as one is a grounding conductor and one is a grounded conductor. Now where this becomes bad is the neutral will carry the unbalanced load, the ground should carry nothing. Sharing one wire for 2 purposes means that 3rd wire will always carry the unbalanced load and can hurt someone if they do not know whats going on. I would never recommend using the same wire as a ground and a neutral. That controller should be sold with a 4 wire plug.

If you wanted to use that for straight 240v you could put in a 10/3, remove that 10 amp breaker and get rid of the 120v receptacles, also remove the neutral and use 3rd wire and that lug for the ground only.

3k worth of lighting on 240v is only 12.5 amps so 20 amp breaker and wiring is fine for that. You can use 16 amps safely on a 20 amp circuit.