Electricity sub-panel? Making a 120v into a 240v.

[l_d_d]

Ok, cool. Figured out then. Thanks for the help guys.

Naw man you didnt fuck me up, Stonewall is here to keep tha thread in check , were all a little high im smoking some Chocolate Trip atm

And stonewall I dunno what tha hell you are talking about but assume you mean parts inside the ballast when you buy the 240v ones.... sorry yall Im not electric literate.

Now I just gotta find a potable AC that runs on 240.

THANKS!

 

[Guest]

240 has a ground...no neutral

 

[Guest]

not grounding out branch circuits causes potential shock hazards or fires

 

[l_d_d]

ok yall i gotta get off right now but will be back, keeps getting more and more confusing to me.

no electrician will ever see this sub-panel, only me and my 'electrician' friend, but defineltly will label.

 

[stonewall]

starting to get derailed a bit.

starting to get derailed a bit.

not entirely true. Some multi tap ballasts do have a common. and you will have to use it. if your v options are 120 208 240 277 or 480 you will have a common wire also. use common w/ appropriate v marked wire.

but if he has store bought setups he won't have to worry.

Show me where to connect the two hot leads for 240 volts on this standard HPS wiring diagram. While your at it show me where to connect the common.

There is no place to connect the common from a four wire 240 volt supply, it is an extra useless wire. the "common" on the ballast is where the second hot leg goes, In conjunction with a hot leg connected to the wire labeled 240v you get a ballst powered by 240 volts.


its confusing I know, I am doing my best to decifer.

 

[stonewall]

whoops here is the diagram.

 

[UNREGISTRD]

Yea but you guys are talking about using older(open) ballasts!! thats what that diagram is for that STONEWALL used^^^^^! You are correct 100% but your confusing the guy beyond belief!

IDD if u use newer store bought ballasts, IE: xtrasun, sunsystems etc they are plug and play so if u have those type of ballasts then your all good, you can swap the wiring over no problem.
but what STonewall is telling u is that if u have older ballast that need wiring they may require a common and a ground so that is why he is saying that to warn u of any future problems u may run into!
Personally I would swap over the wiring using the existing wiring that u have and buy all new xtrasun ballast systems that are all plug/play!

 

[Guest]

When I switched my store bought fixtures from 120V( which they are normally prewired for) to 240 V,I took one leg off the 120V and put it on the 240V and the other goes on the common.It doesnt matter which goes to which wire for 240V use the 240 and common leads.If you're running that subpanel without a neutral(2 hots and a ground) its fine as long as you dont pull any 120V circuits off of it.

 

[fuzygrowth]

therodee ... isn't the ground and neutral connected at the box anyway? doesn't that make it the same wire?? so why can't you run 120 v, if you were to run 120v lines from that 240v box the grounds and neutrals would all come back to the box and connect anyways, i just don't get it, am i wrong in my discriptions?? thanks

 

[Guest]

Although its true the ground and neutral wires are spliced at the service,they surely arent the same thing and you cant safely use a grouind wire for the neutral.Will it work?Yep it will and its quite dangerous.The neutral wire,along with the hots is considred to be a current carrying conductor.The ground wire is not considered to be a current carrying conductor and should never be energized except in fault cases.The neutral carries the unbalanced load between the line conductors and can be hot to the touch if the panel is severely unbalanced.The ground wire will never be hot or even energized except in cases like a short circuit.I'n a single phase 120/240V panel which is what we all use in the states,if you're pulling 30A on leg "A" and 10A on leg "B",the neutral wire is carrying a load of 20A.If both legs are pulling 30A the neutral carries 0A and if 1 leg pulled 50A and the second leg pulled 0A then there would be a 50A load on the neutral,this is where you run into problems and the neutral actually gets hot to the touch.You can't put a load on your ground wire bro,it's just not kosher at all

 

[fuzygrowth]

thanks for clearing that up skeletor

 

[Guest]

Surely fuz

 

[Guest]

i like you're style skeletor. i could use a guy like you in my company. it's a fact, only 1 out of 100 electricians actually GET IT!

 

[JollyGreenGiant]

skeletor:

LOL all the electricians I've worked with use kosher to describe what is and isn't proper way to wire electrical devices.

So kids, the moral of the story is make friends with an electrician who knows his sh!t.

 

[Guest]

Thanks thorodee,but the only tools I've been working with for 4 years now have been my gallon jug and my measuring spoon lol