Electrical Upgrade Help

[kychristmas]

I have been going back and forth for some time planning my Electrical upgrades. Originally I was just going to do a large upgrade to a 400 AMP in preparation for a home additioin we are planning. We are putting the addition on hold due to economic conditions (don't need an ulcer). Rather than repurpose my Workshop outlets during the holidays, I would like to use my AC circuit that is unused Oct. to May. It's a 50AMP circuit.

I had an electrician come back this morning and look at it. He said he couldn't "officially" do that. He surprised me and said that he could unoffiicially wire a SPA box with an outlet. I would then build a Temp 50 AMP Panel with that I would just Plug-In for the Holidays. His price was not cheap. $500 with materials. Considering he said he could do it in a couple hours, I thought it was a bit high. Esepcially for "unofficial"

Although I may still have him do it, I was curious as to what others that use the AC circuit do? I know my box has the typical SLOW Blow Fuse box on it. How do you by-Pass it? Is it a Perm. setup with some sort off bypass switch or do you just reinstall the wiring each year?

Kelly

[Aurbo99]

Here is what I did.

On my main panel I added in a 40Amp 240volt breaker. ($20.00)

Ran some "BX" metal jacket 8/3 wire from the panel to the garage. ($35.00) 10 foot run.

Terminate the BX cable with an Electric Stove outlet. ($5.00)


Sub Panel, ($34.00) Home Depot
4 x 10 Amp breakers ($15.00)
Electric Stove plug ($12.00)
4 double outlets (2 bucks)

I then had a qualified Electrician drop in and inspect my work and make the actual hook up between the BX and the Main panel. ($45.00) I could have done it myself, but I wanted to be safe. He checked all connections for me then made the final install. The only thing he would have like to have seen different was my Stove plug changed to a proper 240V power cable plug, and he never did show me what that was.

about 175 bucks with a few outlet boxes added.

I've since replaced the outlets with GFCI's and upgraded the subpanel breakers to 15amp, but the max draw is still 40Amp.

When I move all thats left behind is a 40 Amp breaker and Stove outlet in the garage.

[bmcgeeny]

I have been going back and forth for some time planning my Electrical upgrades. Originally I was just going to do a large upgrade to a 400 AMP in preparation for a home additioin we are planning. We are putting the addition on hold due to economic conditions (don't need an ulcer). Rather than repurpose my Workshop outlets during the holidays, I would like to use my AC circuit that is unused Oct. to May. It's a 50AMP circuit.

I had an electrician come back this morning and look at it. He said he couldn't "officially" do that. He surprised me and said that he could unoffiicially wire a SPA box with an outlet. I would then build a Temp 50 AMP Panel with that I would just Plug-In for the Holidays. His price was not cheap. $500 with materials. Considering he said he could do it in a couple hours, I thought it was a bit high. Esepcially for "unofficial"

Although I may still have him do it, I was curious as to what others that use the AC circuit do? I know my box has the typical SLOW Blow Fuse box on it. How do you by-Pass it? Is it a Perm. setup with some sort off bypass switch or do you just reinstall the wiring each year?

Kelly

I am most concerned with the "unofficial" installation of electrical services. I would stay away from anyone who agree's to do something he can't get a permit for and get inspected (sound like the case)

Aside from that. More info is needed. It sounds like you currently have an older fused panel box? It is not that expensive to have a 60-100 amp fused box replaced with a 150-200 amp breaker box. I did mine myself, but the quote to do it was $700.

I know you want to upgrade to a 400 amp but even that should not be that bad if you are putting the service in the same location. In my case the feed from the transformer was already big enough for 200 amp (acutually could have gone 300 amp) and so it was just a matter of pulling the old box, connecting the new box and connecting all the circuts to the breaker panel. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to do that. Took me almost that long to run the new ground wire I found I needed the first time the inspector came.

At $500 for a "unofficial" and sounds like temp panel, I would try and find a little more $$$$ and have the new service panel put in now. Once the service is in, it ain't that big a deal to add a sub panel.

[kychristmas]

I have 200 Amp Service between an existing main and another Sub Panel. I have a 200 year old house and for some reason there are regulations that limit the amount of power that can be delivered to a residence of that age. I did find out that when I add the addition on, I will be able to move the service to the new part and upgrade to 300 or 400 amp.

I believe that the "Unofficial" comes from it not being a permittable setup. They don't allow you to temporarily repurpose one circuit like I want to do. There are two main reasons I want to use the A.C. circuit. First, its the lowest cost. I don't want to put too much into it when I'll be doing something more permanent in the next few years. Second, it's the easiest and quickest solution. The Temp Panel will be 4 feet from the AC.

The option I thought might be good solution would be to run a new 8/3 cable from the box to the outside. Technically, it would be an overloaded service, but since the Lights and the AC would never be on at the same time, it really wouldn't be possible to overload it. The only issue with this is that it's a lot of work. My Foundation is 24" of stone and it's a huge deal to drill a hole that large. It took the Satellite TV guy 4-5 hours to drill a 1/2 hole.

I know there are others here that have hooked into their AC circuit and I simply want to know how and what they did.

Thanks
Kelly

[ElectricCraft1]

As a licensed electrical contractor in Florida, you need to stay away from people willing to do an upgrade such as this "un-officially". If there is a problem with the install, liability does fall on the installing party which is good news, but what happens due to the install is bad news. You really need to look at how much actual power draw there will be. Adding a large electrical service is overkill. I will have 72 channels of 100 light strings and the most power I will consume at any given point is 25 amps. Your biggest power draw comes when you have all the lights on at once for longer than a second or so. Most of the time, lights are flashing on and off and not everything is on at once. If you are using Vixen, use the watt-meter add on. You can find the ampacity of all light strings on the string itself, allowing you to put that into Vixen.

I have a receptacle that is 50 amp, 240 volt; meaning there are two 50 amp circuits available. I am going to add a temporary outdoor sub-panel to just plug into this outlet, then have single 20 amp breakers with cords connected to them coming out the bottom. This is considered a temporary installation and falls under a different code in the National Electric Code than a perminent installation. This amount of power is enough to power just about any installation. Please remember, when dimming, the actual power consumption changes to a lower number.

Hope this is some kind of help.

Branden

[kychristmas]

Thanks Branden,
Sounds like what I want to do. My only issue is how to get the outlet. I want to use the AC circuit that is a few feet from where my Temp Panel will be. In your opinion, can I just mount the outlet and move the cable from the AC Fuse box to the outlet each season?

Also, under the NEC, can that "Temp Panel" be mounted to the house? I began creating a temp board. I recovered a panel with breakers from a house that was being torn down (That saved $100). I have that mounted and plan to mount 15 or 20 AMP GFI outlets to the same board.

Kelly

[ElectricCraft1]

Kelly,

I would try to install a separate receptacle just for your temp panel. Reason being, you would not have a neutral conductor at the A/C unit. Essensially, you should have (4) conductors at the receptacle; a black, red, white, and green. For a 50 amp circuit, say a range receptacle you would run a 8-3 wire from the main panel to the receptacle, which could be right underneath the main panel. You would then run a 8-3 with a male range plug to your temp panel location, connect it to your temp panel. If you are intent on using the A/C circuit, you could shut the power off, then disconnect the wires going to the A/C unit from the disconnect box. You can mount the temporary panel to the house. I would remove it after your show is done. Make sure you run a wire from the main of the temp panel to the load side of the disconnect that is a proper size. The load side is where you disconnect the A/C from. If the A/C breaker is 30 amp: #10 wire; 40-50 amp: #8 wire; 60 amp: #6 wire. I would not recommend using the A/C circuit for the reason above. A neutral conductor carries a load of current on it, small, but a load. If you use the ground conductor on the A/C circuit, you are putting a load on that wire. The ground is not supposed to have a load on it except for instantanious trips. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I usually check this post early in the morning eastern time.

Branden

[kychristmas]

Thanks for the advice Branden.

I think I'm going to take your (and others) advice and run a separate wire. First things first, I better get started drilling the hole. I have a minimum of 20 inches of stone foundation to go through.

Kelly

[ElectricCraft1]

Do you have attic space? It might be easier. Also, if you have access to an equipment rental store, you can rent a core drill. This would make short workof your stone foundation. If you can pm me a layout of your house I might be able to help you make your job easier.

[awhaley]

I also considered tacking my lighting power onto the AC disconnect... because it's a 50A circuit already run outside that's not seeing any use in the winter... I was going to shut off the breaker at the main panel, then disconnect the wires from the outdoor disconnect at the AC unit and put new feeder cables into this disconnect that would run to my temporary distro box, then switch it all back after Christmas. I ended up getting an old 100A indoor panel from a remodeled building though, so I wound up installing this as a proper subpanel in the garage.

One thing that got mentioned in this thread... someone mentioned using a 50A 240 Volt outlet, which means they have two hot 'legs' in the box... If you do run two hot legs into your system, it could cause malfunction of REN64s, Firegods, Lynx Freestyles, Grinch/Ren-C combos, and any other remote SSR based dimmer system, IF your ZC detector and your SSRs are on different legs. So the REN-64 and all SSRs fed from it should be on the same leg... you can run a second REN-64 on the other leg... or you can run REN-16s (with integrated SSRs) off whichever leg you'd like!

On a simple 240V system, this probably won't be a problem, since the ZC should be at the same point, but on a 208, or in a three phase setting, it could be a huge deal... so in general you should try to keep the ZC detector and the SSRs on the same leg any time you've got a multi-phase system.

And someone mentioned that the Netural carries 'a little bit' of current.... In a single leg system the neutral carries the same amount of current as the hot... when you get two legs going, assuming the current draw is equal on both of them, THEN the neutral carries very little (theoretically zero, but...) current. In theatre, where most of our dimmer racks are three phase, balancing the loads between the three phases is very important... if you load it all up on any two and load the third lightly, you can draw WAY more current down the neutral line than down either of the hot phases...

Art

[ElectricCraft1]

The 240 volt mentioned was a 120 / 240 volt service to the sub panel. You do not hook 240 to the controllers / SSR's, only to the main of the sub panel. I do not know of many houses that have 3 phase, therefore no 208. The neutral does carry the same amount of current until it reaches ground. We were discussing not using the A/C circuit so this was not a problem. A "little" is this case was at the most 25 amps, which is not a lot.