electrical help! 208v - 120/240

[1971]

OMG, so your cousin or whomever he is must be a residential bonehead. Did you two run that orange romex into the panel?

from the pics it looks as if someone cut the bare copper ground on the orange romex, wired the neutral to the ground bar, and then ran the two hots to god knows where since they are wired on either side of the panel. so you could be running on the same phase, or not. if the black wires coming in the bottom of the panel are what you ran, who knows. it also looks like a neutral is running as a hot but isn't marked, and a red wire is attached to the neutral bar. i could be wrong, as the pics aren't real clear.

this is beyond your ability, so do yourself a favor before you kill yourself or someone else and hire a real commercial electrician.

 

[Roof Berry]

hey 1971,

I am not sure I agree, 240v is two phases instead of one. why would that require a delta configuration?
http://homerepair.about.com/od/electricalrepair/ss/240v_breaker.htm

The blue tape on one of the phases means nothing to us, yes he has a three phase panel, but the two 50 amp breakers powering his units and lights are two phase.

one of his boxes is capable of running on 120 or 240, it does not matter which he uses, but he stated he would like to run them both 240. Which is what he has going on judging by his pictures. Two hot wires and a ground.

as far as overheating, he has too many lights on it i thinks, also, his unit is rated at 30 amps max, hes got 50 amp breakers on each circuit.

It hasnt been that long since i was off the job, so am i missing something here?

 

[Roof Berry]

the orange romex is not part of the grow circuit.

his cousin ran 8/2, follow those two, and youll see that it is perfectly fine.

irobot, how did you confirm 208?

 

[1971]

well, I've never seen someone run a 30 or 40 amp single pole breaker, so if you are going to run all your lights on 120v, why even bother using a control panel?

why not just wire up a bunch of plugs with some 12-4 mc? that would allow you to run 3 120v plugs each at 20 amps and sharing the neutral. the only pain is that you'd have a bunch of timers. the only benefits to using the high amp control panels is its ability to switch large loads easily. when run at 120v, it seems pretty useless to me.

 

[1971]

um, don't listen to berry, he doesn't know anything about 3 phase power. the fact that he refers to two phase hits the point home. he is also linking a 120/240v about article.

the only way you'd be able to get 240v is if it is a delta configuration, something you don't really see much. more likely it is a wye configuration. so what berry can't grasp is that on a 208 wye, two hots doesn't equal 240v, it equals 208v.

the 2 pole breakers are running whatever their rated amperage at 208v.

if his unit is rated at 30 amps, it doesn't matter what size his breaker is. usually those control panels people buy have an internal breaker so that it can't be overloaded, but i could be wrong. just make sure you aren't overloading your units

 

[sampo99999]

30amp 1pole 40amp 1pole

30amp 1pole 40amp 1pole

Wow this is a good one. Im really impressed how cool you guys are to help out old home boy here with his electrical problems.

Damn that 5w 3phase shit is nice and complicated huh.

I used to sell electrical supplies and those buck boost x-formers are stocked all over ca

Also there are good sources for odd breakers in LA. If any one needs a hook up on breakers, or contactors just pm me. THe owner is a good friend and he ships all over ca.

They do run 1pole 30 and 1pole 40a brkrs but i've only seen them used for large insta-hot water heaters.

THey do make them tho up to 1pole 50amp. why idk

 

[1971]

http://neilorme.com/3Phase.shtml

this helps explain the different configurations for your situation along with a 120/240v diagram.

what kind of ballasts are you using? magnetic, digital, manufacturer?

 

[1971]

why not run an insta-hot at a higher voltage? then you wouldn't have to run such a large wire to it

 

[irobot sd]

Yeah he ran 8/2 its coming right up the middle in the panel. He used little black zip ties on the hot / neutral both sides. They run down to both 50 amp breakers. These controllers are meant to run 8 lights each. thats why the 50 amp breaker. . So I was next to him when he checked all of the wall receptacles and they were all running 120v. I wasn't actually with him when he installed the MLC boxes and I only assumed they were 120v this whole time. I phoned him today and asked if any chance he checked what the boxes ran and he said "uhh they're 208.." This makes me an idiot and him an even bigger one. So with all the advice I would still rather run 120v boxes than run a bunch of new plugs or bumping up transformer to 240. Would this be practical?

 

[dgr]

irobot,
Did ya look at the first page Or the multiple replies on this page? I'm just bustin' balls. 30 or 40 amp single pole breakers. No reason I can see that you can't pick up a two pole breaker with a removable tie bar and remove the tie bar. Then you have your two breakers. Wire two 120V circuits and you are done. You already have the wire pulled. You can use the same wiring. Only point not clear is below.

1971,
Can he remove the tie bar on his 50 amp breaker and share the neutral to get 2 50 amp 120V circuits out of it? that'd require no new purchases and keep the wiring on his original 50 amp breaker available for future use.


best of luck

 

[Roof Berry]

If I am wrong, you could explain it to me.

why would those units or lights run on three phases, do you see three terminals in his units?

each phase is 120, two 240.
why are we talking about wye's and deltas.

 

[1971]

sorry, it is just hard to follow the wires, so assuming they are wired properly, it is all good. but the 50 amp breaker is feeding your controllers at 208v, which i think you confirmed.

that is correct that the wall plugs would be 120v. the cool thing about 3 phase when it comes to plugs is that you can have 3 circuits on the same neutral.

it seems that there was a lack of communication between you two, that's all.

so the easy fix would seem to be using a single pole breaker rated appropriately. what is the insulation rating of the wire you ran?

 

[1971]

well, it all depends on if the breaker has a removable bar, and i wasn't able to determine if that was the case. i'm not a big fan of doing things half-assed. i totally get what you are saying, but do it right and do it once. if he has to get a new breaker, why not just get a properly rated single pole breaker. but really, it makes no sense to me running a large single pole breaker. it is just way more expensive, but it looks like it is already installed and now a moot point.


before we can determine the size of the breaker, we need to know the insulation rating of his wire.

 

[1971]

berry,

look at the link i provided as it explains things.

the system is 3 phases:

120 x the square root of 3 = 207.85 or 208 which is the voltage between two phases.

 

[rogerw]

I would also recommend you to go down to your local hardware store and buy a handy little plug in electrical tester. They cost about $5 and will tell you how much voltage you have along with a bunch of other tests . Trust me it can save your ass and for a few bucks the most handy tester you can buy. It will just plug right into your socket .

 

[irobot sd]

I dont have that info right in front of me but its 8/2 romex so wouldnt it be rated 40 amp? I am reading over the MLC-8x instructions and it calls for 8/2 romex or 50 amp dryer or range cable. Yikes then it says
NOTE: ALTHOUGH THIS MLC CAN BE WIRED TO 120V OPERATION AND USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A 120 V BALLAST THIS IS NOT A OPTIMAL COMBINATION AND REDUCES THE NUMBER OF BALLASTS THAT CAN BE RUN ON THIS MLC.

So this drives 1971s points through 10 fold. So its been about 24 hours since I started this thread and Im even more confused as to what to do. If these boxes operate less effectively is my only option to run 20 amp 120v single pole plugs?

 

[irobot sd]

OR the buck boost up to 240? What would be more practical for 16 lights?

 

[Roof Berry]

i did not know that about three phase panels, glad i gave wrong advice here.

 

[growshopfrank]

I dont have that info right in front of me but its 8/2 romex so wouldnt it be rated 40 amp? I am reading over the MLC-8x instructions and it calls for 8/2 romex or 50 amp dryer or range cable. Yikes then it says
NOTE: ALTHOUGH THIS MLC CAN BE WIRED TO 120V OPERATION AND USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A 120 V BALLAST THIS IS NOT A OPTIMAL COMBINATION AND REDUCES THE NUMBER OF BALLASTS THAT CAN BE RUN ON THIS MLC.

So this drives 1971s points through 10 fold. So its been about 24 hours since I started this thread and Im even more confused as to what to do. If these boxes operate less effectively is my only option to run 20 amp 120v single pole plugs?

the easiest solution would be to run the ballasts at 208 v check to see if the ballasts have a 208v tap (most quad tap ballasts do) if they dont have a 208v tap get some that do.
i just cant understand why electrical threads seem to always turn into pissing matches around here...

 

[1971]

I looked up some buck boosters and it isn't cost effective nor would they work, at least with the brand I checked. there isn't one that goes from 208v to 240v, rather the closest you get is 229v. That might not be much of an issue, but you are underpowering your lights. Also, because you are on a 3 phase system, you'd need to run two boosters, which would run probably 400-500 total with shipping.