Range plug to 2-120V outlets

[dotblunt]

Browsed back 10 pages, didn't see what I was looking for so here I am.

Going to be wiring 2 standard 120V dual outlets off a 240V range plug, and I'm looking for some affirmation.

So, 2 hots, a ground, and a neutral. One hot to each 120V outlet, split the neutral to each outlet and ground the ground. Am I on drugs or am I in the ballpark?

I have done a ton of 240V wirings back in my oil patch days but it has been years and I never ever trusted something I couldn't see. I'd pay an electrician but I have a good feeling that it isn't complicated enough for 'expert' money.

DB

 

[Fear]

Dude that is correct on how to wire the outlets but I would change the breaker to a 2 pole 20amp breaker or your outlets could burn before the breaker even thinks of tripping. another suggesting is buying the 4 wire appliance cord and mounting a 4 square box to the open end with an quad industrial raised cover. Then you can unlug the cord and take it with you. Peace.

 

[dotblunt]

Thanks for the heads up, I honestly might have missed that bit of excellent advice. Heres what I have, hope they make these in 20Amp versions.

 

[PharmaCan]

Dude that is correct on how to wire the outlets but I would change the breaker to a 2 pole 20amp breaker or your outlets could burn before the breaker even thinks of tripping. another suggesting is buying the 4 wire appliance cord and mounting a 4 square box to the open end with an quad industrial raised cover. Then you can unlug the cord and take it with you. Peace.

Good advice all the way around!

PC

 

[Pepe Le Peeyoo]

and to be double safe, after the new 20 amp breakers, use a power strip with a breaker in it to plug all your stuff into.

 

[Fear]

Never use a plug strip and think that will save you I have seen them melt before especially with lights. They sell 20 amp fuses. You have one shitty if any at all grounded system. Knob and Tube sucks man. You should be able to find 20's if you can't at your local hardware store you'll have to hit up a electrical supply house. But if you don't change those fuses man you are looking for trouble.

 

[RockyMountainHi]

I just wired a 220V dryer plug to run dual 120V 1000W ballasts - and as the above posteer said - no strip outlets - they are not designed for the voltage and current needed. - Start large fire and make for a berry bad day.

Do it right and sleep secure and safe at night.

Pretty simple - one hot and the ground to each recptical - or you can get tricky and clip the jumper between the recpticals in ONE dual plug and have one outlet with dual feeds.

Need a pix?

 

[dotblunt]

Yes please, just for my peace of mind!

Fear- Agreed, an old building whose wiring I do not trust.

 

[Fear]

I just installed a 100amp grounded sub panel off a knob and tube system like that. The house is fed with 100amp feeders so I double tapped the lugs and drove a new ground rod and ran it to his new room. Bam now ready for 16k watts.

Look take two 20 amp duplex recepts. If you have any romex or anything or #12 wire pig tail the 2 duplex recepts. Wire the recepts up with 10" pig tails and wire nut the 3 whites together, wire nut all the grounds together, wire nut one duplex to one hot and the other to the other. Just try to use the correct wire nuts. Depends how big those wires are 40 amp wire can be big.

 

[sparkjumper]

having two seperate circuits on a 2 pole breaker is not only against code,its against common sense lol.If you have trouble with one circuit and it trips the breaker,its going to kill both circuits.You dont want that.Use two single pole 20A breakers if the circuit is 12 wire

 

[Fear]

Please don't disregard my electrical information you aren't even paying attention sparkjumper.
anyways here is a little lesson in code for you!

In section 210.23 of the NEC says" An individual branch circuit circuit shall be permitted to supply any load for which it is rated." however, the two single-pole circuit breakers are not suitable without a handle tie. This requirement can be found 210.4 in the National electrical code book. It is code when two circuits are combined into a single junction box in a residential dwelling that all circuits in thus Junction box turn off at the same time for servicing or repairs. Which is what that fuse block does the way it is now!
So get your facts straight before spitting code out. Especially to an licensed electrical contractor who actually knows what he is talking about. Oh I am also a licensed Journeyman in the state of Ca. too which is harder to get than the contracting license! Anyways you didn't even read the trhead he has fuses not breakers and those fuses can't be tied together anyways.

 

[PharmaCan]

Please don't disregard my electrical information you aren't even paying attention sparkjumper.
anyways here is a little lesson in code for you!

In section 210.23 of the NEC says" An individual branch circuit circuit shall be permitted to supply any load for which it is rated." however, the two single-pole circuit breakers are not suitable without a handle tie. This requirement can be found 210.4 in the National electrical code book. It is code when two circuits are combined into a single junction box in a residential dwelling that all circuits in thus Junction box turn off at the same time for servicing or repairs. Which is what that fuse block does the way it is now!
So get your facts straight before spitting code out. Especially to an licensed electrical contractor who actually knows what he is talking about. Oh I am also a licensed Journeyman in the state of Ca. too which is harder to get than the contracting license! Anyways you didn't even read the trhead he has fuses not breakers and those fuses can't be tied together anyways.

ROFL - Electrical threads crack me up. Someone gives good advice and then someone else has to come along and tries to show that theirs is bigger. Then, of course, there's the idiots who don't have a clue what their talking about but insist upon contributing their two cents anyway.

Fear - welcome to the forum.

PC

 

[madpenguin]

dum, dum dum dum..... Guess who? :wink:

Don't know who you were agreeing with PC but just to clarify for others, Fear is correct and sparkjumper is not. Sorry Spark but that's just a Multi wire Branch circuit.

Perfectly legal and safe to feed 2 -120v on a ?/3 cable using a double pole breaker. If your in an area that's on 08' code and this circuit will be in a room that is required to be AFCI protected, then don't run a MWBC because the breaker will never stay in the on position due to your shared neutral.

The OP is on the right track but those 40A fuses must be swapped out for 20's if he is planning on using regular receptacles. All neutrals MUST be securely wire nutted together. Don't rely on the receptacle yoke connections. If one comes loose you put 240v to your 120v appliance.

And Fear, even 2 single pole breakers with a handle tie aren't up to code as far as I'm aware because the common trip mechanism has to be internal. You can't solely rely on the force of one handle tripping to "forcefully" trip the other due to the handle tie connection.

 

[PharmaCan]

dum, dum dum dum..... Guess who? :wink:

Don't know who you were agreeing with PC but just to clarify for others, Fear is correct and sparkjumper is not. Sorry Spark but that's just a Multi wire Branch circuit.

Perfectly legal and safe to feed 2 -120v on a ?/3 cable using a double pole breaker. If your in an area that's on 08' code and this circuit will be in a room that is required to be AFCI protected, then don't run a MWBC because the breaker will never stay in the on position due to your shared neutral.

The OP is on the right track but those 40A fuses must be swapped out for 20's if he is planning on using regular receptacles. All neutrals MUST be securely wire nutted together. Don't rely on the receptacle yoke connections. If one comes loose you put 240v to your 120v appliance.

And Fear, even 2 single pole breakers with a handle tie aren't up to code as far as I'm aware because the common trip mechanism has to be internal. You can't solely rely on the force of one handle tripping to "forcefully" trip the other due to the handle tie connection.

I think when I quoted Fear and said, "Good advice all the way around!" it was pretty obvious who I was agreeing with.

While I always use wire nuts and pigtails for my connections, I just wonder how you figure that a ground coming loose is going to put 240v to one of the receptacles???? If a ground comes loose and completely disconnects, you would no longer have a circuit in one or both receptacles. But how do you think the electricity from one receptacle is then going to migrate to the other receptacle to make it 240v? I suppose gremlins or poltergeist in the handy box could accomplish that, but just disconnecting the ground wouldn't.

PC

 

[dotblunt]

You people are the best, I'll be making my run for parts Wednesday and I'll post my wiring pics for scrutiny at that point.

Many Thanks,

DB

 

[Fear]

You are right on the breaker tie not being legal and the breaker needing to have a common trip.

And PC what mp was saying is dont use the recept instead of a wire nut to jumper the additional recept that's all. No ground means your not protected from electrical shock, probably have some shitty ground connected to an old gas line that was cut anyways were you live. If you lose the neutral connection the electricity has no return path and may damage your equipment. Usually burns up a power supply or quickly pops the circuit board on microwaves shit like that, TVs blow up, computers etc. Gremlins would destroy more than the poltergeist since they are so mischievious. But unless your house gets sucked into the air than that would really fuck up your grow!

 

[madpenguin]

I just wonder how you figure that a ground coming loose is going to put 240v to one of the receptacles???? If a ground comes loose and completely disconnects, you would no longer have a circuit in one or both receptacles. But how do you think the electricity from one receptacle is then going to migrate to the other receptacle to make it 240v? I suppose gremlins or poltergeist in the handy box could accomplish that, but just disconnecting the ground wouldn't.

PC

I never said anything about a ground. I said a loose neutral would put your 120v loads in series with one another thus producing 240v if you ever got a loose neutral. This is why you should mechanically twist your neutrals with lineman's and then wirenut really good with pigtails when using MWBC's.... An open neutral in such a configuration will utterly and completely destroy 120v equipment as Fear stated.

Seems your not reading my posts again.... :wink:

 

[PharmaCan]

I never said anything about a ground. I said a loose neutral would put your 120v loads in series with one another thus producing 240v if you ever got a loose neutral. This is why you should mechanically twist your neutrals with lineman's and then wirenut really good with pigtails when using MWBC's.... An open neutral in such a configuration will utterly and completely destroy 120v equipment as Fear stated.

Seems your not reading my posts again.... :wink:

I said ground, meant neutral. I still want to know how that is going to make the receptacle have 240 volts in it. You have one hot wire running to each receptacle. If the neutral is disconnected, how does that turn the receptacle into 240 volts?

PC

 

[madpenguin]

It's Kirchhoff's Law and the basic way a 240v circuit works. Cause let's face it, we are talking about a 240v circuit when dealing with a MWBC. You just happen to be throwing in a shared neutral on top of it.

I really don't feel like drawing a schematic in MS paint but I will if I can't find something online. I'll do this just for you PC because we are such good friends.

 

[madpenguin]

If the neutral is disconnected, how does that turn the receptacle into 240 volts?

While I'm spending the next 45 minutes drawing out one or two circuit diagrams, I'll just say that by loosing the neutral back to the panel, the neutral spanning the 2 receptacles will complete the circuit. Then you've got L1 flowing directly to L2 with a potential of 240v in order to complete the circuit.

Current must always return to it's source and it must always balance out. When you remove the neutral path, all your left with is a simple 240v circuit.