Electrical question

[Pat]

Egon, I have a friend whose name is Edward and goes by Eddie. I thought your usage was a possessive form of his name, what with the capitalization and all. Basically, ignore any of my English usage comments, I'm one of the worst spellers on the planet. Even with spell check I wouldn't get high marks and my grammar is often worse. Lots of people probably don't think English is my first language. I have to stop and worry about things like principle and principal and similar things.

Anyway, I do understand what you did and I do understand how double pole breakers are hooked together mechanically but with each side contacting a different rail and thereby leg of the 240 so an overload on either leg will trip both legs off-line.

I get it, I really do but using mother earth as the neutral to get 120 is a shabby practice. I would only consider it for a temp or emergency measure like if I had to have a work light in a critical situation and only had 240 available and no 240 volt bulbs (and only one 120 volt bulb so I couldn't put two in series) or to run a power tool enough to effect emergency repairs. I just couldn't intentionally wire outlets like that. I only do 240/120 with 4 wires. Two 120 legs, a neutral, and a safety ground. I really don't even like installations where ground and neutral are tied together at the breaker box.

I'm definitely NOT an electrician and most of my experience with electrons was in really small wires but I manage to handle the typical house and shop wiring challenges safely although I am still having trouble deciphering what the electricians left behind that I am going to finish, in a few instances.

Pat

[Daryl]

Man< now I am confused.. [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Daryl, You need to be specific about your confusion to be able to more easily get specific help.

I reread your initial post. The size of the breaker in the "main box" has no relationship to the losses of the wire running to the second box.

You need to at least size the wire as large as the code calls for and if near the limit for the length of your run, be smart and go a size larger.

Your initial comments were right on. You run wire from a breaker in box #1 (double pole/240 volt) to power box #2 (a sub panel.)

The breaker in box #1 will limit the max current the wire to box #2 will be exposed to and prevent it being overheated, damaged and becoming a fire hazard and such. You can wire from breakers in box #2 to ouitlets, lights, and such. The breakers in the sub panel are sized for the branch circuits in the remote location, like 20 amp for a string of outlets (or even just one.)

The BEST practice is to run 3 wire with ground (a total of 4 conductors with one probably bare.) THis wire is available in "romex" to run in conduit or inside walls or with different insulation and jacket for direct burial in the ground. A downside to direct burial is gophers and such chewing on them. I recommend plastic conduit for burial to be safe.

The 4 conductor wire is used as follows: red and black are connected to the two output connections on the two pole breaker in box #1(one to each output screw.) Each of these wires feeds a "rail" or buss in box #2.

The white wire is the neutral and connects to an insulated buss/connector with a row of screws that is not electrically connected to the box itself.

The green (or bare) wire is the ground wire and connects to the other buss/connector in box #2 with a row of screws. Some boxes also insulate this buss from the frame of the box. It is OK if it is connected to the frame of the box. Here is where yet more folks may disagree... the ground buss and the neutral buss in box #2 should not be connected to each other. You can buy a box so configured or that can so so configured by removing a jumper.

I prefer having the neutral and ground separate.

Check the NEC and/or local electrical code which supersedes the NEC if there is a variance and if anything I said is not to code: 1. I'd be surprised, and 2. do what the code says instead of what I said.

You will want to drive a ground rod IAW local code and wire it to the ground buss in box #2 IAW local code.

It is possible without violating the laws of physics to light a light or run a tool at the remote site with a much simpler setup. I do not recommend it. Code will not provide for most really simple methods. Your insurance carrier would NOT be happy with you and the little gnomes (much worse than gremlins) who cause electrical problems would have a field day with you.

Warning: The following is NOT to be done, just thought about!

The simplest way to light a light or power a tool at your remote site is to run a single conductor from a breaker in your box to the remote site and connect it to the "hot" connection on an outlet. Drive a ground rod or connect to a metal water pipe and wire that to the neutral connection of the outlet. This will give you approximately 120VAC up to the rating of the breaker supplying the current. This is the cheap[est way to get remote power and SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BECAUSE IT IS DUMB!!!

It saves $ but is really really DUMB. Have I ever done anything like this or as dumb. Well yes but just long enough to survive a temporary emergency or crisis and I did not leave anything like this hooked up when not actually there on site.

I have used a few hundred feet of RG-8 radio antenna coax to send 120VAC to a remote antenna site to power my soldering gun to solder the fittings onto the coax supplying the power. Not my favorite action but if you are careful and do not leave the coax connected to power and unattended no one will get hurt and in that part of Mexico it could have taken a week to get extension cords to do the job.

Note: The simple DUMB method I described is NOT what Egon said. His way was more sophisticated, not as cheap as mine, and something I would still never recommend.

Pat

[Daryl]

Thank you.

[jml755]

------"Warning: The following is NOT to be done, just thought about!
The simplest way to light a light or power a tool at your remote site is to run a single conductor from a breaker in your box to the remote site and connect it to the "hot" connection on an outlet. Drive a ground rod or connect to a metal water pipe and wire that to the neutral connection of the outlet. This will give you approximately 120VAC up to the rating of the breaker supplying the current. This is the cheap[est way to get remote power and SHOULD NEVER BE DONE BECAUSE IT IS DUMB!!!"

Agree 100% with Pat. BTDT, back when I knew nothing about "code". I wanted to switch the garage lites on/off from our first house (many, many moons ago), so I used the neutral for the "switched" hot. As Pat said, IT WORKED. However, turning off the breaker on that circuit would make the garage lites glow! [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I knew that was NOT a good thing, so I fixed it before we moved.

[egon]

Pat, its not complicated. It's the same type of breaker your stove will use only rated at 20 amps. At the other end you use the same type breaker as the main breaker in the box.

Maybe I did run three wire as my recollections are not always that good. Probably I did because it was legal at the time.

It may have been the 12 gauge two wire 110 that I ran to the pond pump that I was thinking of! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Eddie and grain boundaries sound familiar?

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[CJDave]

[img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Here is the official scoop on the GREEN or BARE wire and to which bar it should be connected. In other words, the gospel according to CJDave. ::::: ONLY IN THE MAIN SERVICE PANEL are the neutral and the equipment ground joined together. If that main service panel feeds to a sub panel in the garage, or a sub in the engine shop, or a sub in the subterranean arms factory, the GREEN MUST BE KEPT SEPARATE and it must go all the way back to the main service panel. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] This little piece of code is kind of inconvenient when you use a aerial run across a farmyard because that cable is usually triplex not four conductor. In that case what I do is drive a ground rod at the end of the drop and re-establish the neutral-green common bond. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Thanks Egon, That sure cleared that up!

Daryl, Did you see the movie, "D.A.R.Y.L." and or did you get kidded about it?

I forgot to mention one of the other side effects of using an earth return for 120VAC neutral... You might cause the worms to want to get the heck out of Dodge to dodge the current by heading for the surface. When I was a kid and my dad was posted to NW Ohio (Lima) for 7 years, night crawlers were a big fish bait item and were typically collected at the surface after a rain. They could be encouraged to surface by an electric current.

Oh, and by the way, I got 1/2 a cent/worm (in good shape and not damaged like breaking in half while being captured.

Pat

[Daryl]

Daryl, Did you see the movie, "D.A.R.Y.L." and or did you get kidded about it?

I saw the movie. Never got kidded about it. Every one always spelled my name Darrell. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] I just got used to it.
Again thanks for all the replys.

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Every one always spelled my name Darrell.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had an uncle Daryl in El Reno, OK, who was a train engineer and was killed in a train wreck in 1951. I've seen his name spelled both ways in a number of documents. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]