30 amp dryer outlet, electrian help needed

mrduke

mrduke

Well-Known Member
so i got a 30 amp outlet for the dryer but mine runs on natural gas so why not use those extra amps for more lights??? Well cause i dont know how to switch from a 220v dryer oulet to a pair of 220v outlets. I was thinking that i could add a subpanel then split it up it to 2 15 amp 220v breakers( that would be fine for 2 1000's per breaker right?) I already have 2 20amp 110 lines coming in just need more for the extras i want to add.:weed: thanks in advance
 
kingme

kingme

Active Member
Well it all depends on how many wires you have. If its a 4 wire then you are golden for a sub panel. because you will have the neutral.(white wire) Now if its just 3 wire, that means you have 2 hots and a ground. This isnt bad but you can only run 220 amp appliances. Now you also have the options if you dont have a neutral to make one of the hot wires a neutral by putting it on neutral bar in you main panel. Now if you are not qualified to do this then i would not do it because you can kill your self. So lets sum this up. You either have 1 20 amp circuit (assuming that the wire is #12 guage wire or bigger) or you have 2 circuits for 220 volt. none the less you are lucky. Also please do not think you can just plug the light into the laundry circuit because you are making a bad decision based on your dryed is proably rated for 40 amps (#8 guage wire typically in residenial) And those 1000 watts are only rated for a 15-20 amp circuit. You will not be protecting the light and this can cause a fire if somthing were to go wrong. You can put a single rated light on 30 amps but it must be dedicated, and the light needs to be rated for it.
 
mrduke

mrduke

Well-Known Member
thanks for the quicky king I'll have to check if its 3 or 4 wire, the house is old so i'd guess it probably 3 wire??
you say thats not bad just run 220 appliances, can i still do a sub panel and have 3-4 dedicated 220 outlets ran off that. this line will only be for lights nothing else?

my thought was to get a dryer cord and plug it to the outlet then other end feed a subpanel with 15amp breakers 3-4 so each light will have it own breaker @15amp even though they only draw like 5amps. hows that sound or I'm i way over thinking this
 
kingme

kingme

Active Member
yes you can, but you need to get a 30 amp subpanel to be safe. This is your best bet. i would look for a 8 cir sub panel maybe a squared on ebay.
 
mrduke

mrduke

Well-Known Member
i was lookin a round and found a c.a.p mlc-4xt which is a 30amp 240v light controler that says you can wire dirrectly to a dry outlet, and power up to 4-1000's and has a built in timer. sound like a pretty simple solution. I wont have to do any real wireing just connect to wires from the dryer cord into the box and done
 
kingme

kingme

Active Member
before you buy that you need to verify that you dont need a 4 wire. you need to make sure that will plug into your dryer recept in other words. Or you will have to cut off the end and install a new end.
 
Z

zeropercentthc

Member
I don't know anything about electricity.... but... the MLC-4XT has a 120 volt trigger to plug into a timer to run the relay. As far as I'm aware, it's not proper / to code to use a 3 wire 30 amp line when running anything 120 volts. All the commercial light controllers seem to do this though. But they're supposed to be 4 wires. The 120 volt timer will be using your ground as a neutral, which is the problem. Plus it just seems a bit risky to have 120 volt outlets being used as 240 volts, as it's easy for somebody to make the mistake of accidentally plugging in an appliance (ballast) set at 120 volts when it's running 240 volts.
http://www.stayonline.com/reference-nema-straight-blade.aspx
 
kingme

kingme

Active Member
mrduke said:
thanks for all your help king
Click to expand...

No problem, and hes right unless that is setup for a 3 wire. Not everything needs a neutral to run that is 120volt that might have a little transformer that creates a neutral. Im not sure. I highly doubt it. You need to verify a few things on your end before purchasing
 
mrduke

mrduke

Well-Known Member
the timer is the only thing in the unit that runs 110v and has to be plugged in seperately. all the outlets are 240v, and it is setup for 3 wire install, I just need to find out if i am orif i got 4
 
sleeperls93

sleeperls93

Active Member
I could help a little bit; first of all if its an electrical dryer circuit, it has to be 30amps, and if its 30 amps, it has to be a #10/3 awg, should be romex if its a house. If it was me, what i would do is the following...
-turn off the 240 volt 30 amp breaker in the main panel
-remove the dryer outlet from the box that its installed on
-now you have the availability of two circuits in the box, I would run a quad outlet from each circuit, giving you four outlets per circuit..
-now that you have tour outlets done; go to the main panel, remove that 220 30 amp breaker, and install 2 2o amp single breakers, bring the black wire to one of the breakers nad the red wire to the other breaker, you could use 30amp breakers thanks to that fat 10-3 wire... This would be cheaper then that buying that controller andyou coul keep it 120..... and yeah, this is how I make my living...
 
sleeperls93

sleeperls93

Active Member
kingme said:
Well it all depends on how many wires you have. If its a 4 wire then you are golden for a sub panel. because you will have the neutral.(white wire) Now if its just 3 wire, that means you have 2 hots and a ground. This isnt bad but you can only run 220 amp appliances. Now you also have the options if you dont have a neutral to make one of the hot wires a neutral by putting it on neutral bar in you main panel. Now if you are not qualified to do this then i would not do it because you can kill your self. So lets sum this up. You either have 1 20 amp circuit (assuming that the wire is #12 guage wire or bigger) or you have 2 circuits for 220 volt. none the less you are lucky. Also please do not think you can just plug the light into the laundry circuit because you are making a bad decision based on your dryed is proably rated for 40 amps (#8 guage wire typically in residenial) And those 1000 watts are only rated for a 15-20 amp circuit. You will not be protecting the light and this can cause a fire if somthing were to go wrong. You can put a single rated light on 30 amps but it must be dedicated, and the light needs to be rated for it.
Click to expand...
A dryer circuit will always be a 10-3, so it does have 4 wires(two hots, a neutral, and a ground); unless its a gas run dryer, in that case all you need is a 12-2 for a 110 circuit...
 
sleeperls93

sleeperls93

Active Member
consider yourself lucky for having access to this power source...especially since you already have two other circuits... that should be all thepowr you need, awesome!
 
bird mcbride

bird mcbride

Well-Known Member
In Canada the wire without any insulation is ground. Usually in standard house wiring this wire is assotiated with a green lug and is attached to any metal electrical box case(s). The white wire(silver lug) is the center tap of the 240vac line transformer that the wire going out to the transformer leads to and is refered to as the common wire, or in electronics chassis ground. By using this center tap two phases of 120vac can be produced, 180 degrees out of phase with each other however. The white wire is also bonded to the groung wire inside the main electrical panel in your home. Because it is bonded to the ground(the stakes in the ground somewhere outside your home) this side of the circuit is considered to be the cold side of the electrical plane. The white wire, with either the red wire or the black wire(brass lug) will produce 120vac. The black and red wire is your 240vac source. These two wires are considered to be the hot side of the plane because they're not tied to ground and coming in contact with them while they're hot can be lethal.
 
Z

zeropercentthc

Member
sleeperls93 said:
I could help a little bit; first of all if its an electrical dryer circuit, it has to be 30amps, and if its 30 amps, it has to be a #10/3 awg, should be romex if its a house. If it was me, what i would do is the following...
-turn off the 240 volt 30 amp breaker in the main panel
-remove the dryer outlet from the box that its installed on
-now you have the availability of two circuits in the box, I would run a quad outlet from each circuit, giving you four outlets per circuit..
-now that you have tour outlets done; go to the main panel, remove that 220 30 amp breaker, and install 2 2o amp single breakers, bring the black wire to one of the breakers nad the red wire to the other breaker, you could use 30amp breakers thanks to that fat 10-3 wire... This would be cheaper then that buying that controller andyou coul keep it 120..... and yeah, this is how I make my living...
Click to expand...
Is it okay to use one neutral wire for two separate circuits? And one ground for two circuits? What sort of timers would you use?
 
sleeperls93

sleeperls93

Active Member
bird mcbride said:
In Canada the wire without any insulation is ground. Usually in standard house wiring this wire is assotiated with a green lug and is attached to any metal electrical box case(s). The white wire(silver lug) is the center tap of the 240vac line transformer that the wire going out to the transformer leads to. By using this center tap two phases of 120vac can be produced, 180 degrees out of phase with each other however. The white wire is also bonded to the groung wire inside the main electrical panel in your home. Because it is bonded to the ground(the stakes in the ground somewhere outside your home) this side of the circuit is considered to be the cold side of the electrical plane. The white wire, with either the red wire or the black wire(brass lug) will produce 120vac. The black and red wire is your 240vac source. These two wires are considered to be the hot side of the plane because they're not tied to ground and coming in contact with them while they're hot can be lethal.
Click to expand...
Bare copper is always the ground, the white wre is used as a neutral unless you make it a hot wire, I'm not sure if that's what you suggesting, but it's wrong.. each line actually equals 110 he cant have a 110 circuit and 220 circuit from that one 10-3 wire, he could either have one or the other... And I don't think it's necessary to explain that the ground and the neutral are connected in the panel, and the cold side and hotside, that must be canadien terminology.. Yeah it could be lethal if left on, but that's why you turn off the breaker, and be caredul while working in the panel, he doesn't need to touch that circuits ground and neutral in the panel, so why mention it?
 
bird mcbride

bird mcbride

Well-Known Member
I find a dryer cord and I tie and lug all of my connections. I have used one strand of 10/2 wire to run three 1000w/240vac/hps.
 
sleeperls93

sleeperls93

Active Member
For the installation of these two quad boxes, it kind of depends on wether the wall that the dryer outlet is on, is finished(drywall) or open... Im assuming its finished with sheetrock. The outlet is installed either on a 1900 box with a dryeroutlet adapter or its installed on a 2-gang plastock box... if its a 1900 box youll need a 2 gang adapter to installa quad outlet... anyway, for the next quad outlet set-up, if its already sheetrocked, your going to need a 2 gang old work box.. make sure you make the hole for the box on the same side beam gap as the original box you will be splicing from . your going to run a 10-2 wire ( it could be a 12-2) from the original dryer outletr box to your new old work box....
 
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