Any electricians?

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SRT_DSTRHOLC

SRT_DSTRHOLC

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Im looking to see if anyone could assist me in finding or making a NEMA 10-30 basic washer plug adapter for a NEMA L6-30 for a welder, so it would be

10-30p to L6-30R Male 10-30 and Female L6-30

If you can assist me that would be great. I would pay you for the parts and time. Thanks!
 
I've got a half dozen various range dryer pigtails here and a couple of adapter cords too but those numbers dont help me at all. I have to go by the outlets appearence.
I'm not sure but I thing these adapters came from a mobile home supply retailer.
 
Go to lowes or home depot. They have all that stuff in the electrical section!

Draw a picture of your plug configurations and have a look.
 
crackedback said:
Go to lowes or home depot. They have all that stuff in the electrical section!

Draw a picture of your plug configurations and have a look.
Click to expand...


I rather not be responsible for burning the house down. I rather allow someone with the "technical know how" do it and pay them for their time. But if no one can, then I guess I will have to!
 

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Really?

Green, black and white wires...IIRC I think the stuff is even color coded so you don't screw it up, at least the ground is green from memory. The other wire just get hooked to the other terminals
 
crackedback said:
Really?

Green, black and white wires...IIRC I think the stuff is even color coded so you don't screw it up, at least the ground is green from memory. The other wire just get hooked to the other terminals
Click to expand...

Well I read that the difference between the 10-30 and the L6-30 is that the 10-30 is a 3-Pole (2 hots and a neutral) and the L6-30 is a 2-Pole grounding plug (2 hots and a ground). So i wouldnt know where to start. Also the wiring of the house is from the early 70s. So I don't know how the colors would correspond. I am just playing it safe.
 
In this case, neutral and ground pretty much equate to ground.

Any modern load that NEEDS a neutral (IE 120V circuits) must be FOUR wire, not three.

separate ground

separate neutral

two hots

Most welders can be 3 wire, and most older house dryer wiring is three wire.

My plasma cutter came with a 4 wire plug, but the neutral connection wasn't hooked to anything internally!!! So in reality it's 3 wire!!! I just cut the connector off and put my 40A dryer plug on the end

On the other hand Sears SCREWED us a few years ago, might have been a code violation THEN and CERTAINLY is a violation now

(See you cannot have a 120V circuit GROUNDED for the neutral return)

So we have a Sears 240V buzzbox AC welder, and I made an extension and into our VERY busy breaker box. We have center tapped delta 3 phase, which means one of the three hot lets is "wild" and cannot be used for 120V.

The only easy available breakers included the wild leg FINE for a 240 only appliance. I "knew" it had no 120V stuff inside, as it was 3 wire.

So I hook it all up, and "let the smoke out" of the 120V cooling blower WHICH WAS GROUNDED TO THE CASE!!!. And of course "we" had a 50-50 chance of getting the "wild" leg hooked to the blower or the "other hot" leg of the welder.
 
Shut the breaker off to that outlet and open the outlet up at the wall. That chart says the 10-30 outlet in your house should have a red and black connected to the hot leads and the white neutral connected to the 3rd lead. Now we have no idea how your house is wired so you're going to have to tell us. You could have it wired up that way with a bare or green ground wire attached to the box itself. It could be wired red and black on hot and bare or green on the other lead that's supposed to be neutral.

Really it's not a matter of making a cord for it. It's about knowing how that outlet is wired up. Since it's 220v, it should be on it's own breaker without anything else in line with it. That's something you'll have to check though. If you want to wire it up correctly, then make sure the neutral or ground that is connected to that 3rd lead goes back to your box and is connected to the neutral bar in your main (or sub) panel.

Electrical is extremely simple (more than the coil/battery/alternator in our cars), it's just people are afraid to mess with it.

If you open up the box and you have a red, black and white connected to the outlet. You can either change the outlet to one that fits your welder, or change the welder plug to fit the wall (easiest). Just go to Home Depot and see what the two connectors are rated at. You want them rated the same or the wall outlet to be rated at a higher amperage than the welder plug.
 
yeah, if i can not make adapater...As it is not MY welder..I guess I may just switch the washer, since we don't use that outlet anymore. But based off that chart, Black to Black and white to green?
 
Don't gerry rig an adapter. 110v can be adapted from 3 prong to 2 prong (wouldn't recommend it) but 220v shouldn't be messed with.

Do you mean dryer? Your washer should be on a regular 110v outlet, correct?
 
ESP47 said:
Don't gerry rig an adapter. 120v can be adapted from 3 prong to 2 prong (wouldn't recommend it) but 220v shouldn't be messed with.

Do you mean dryer? Your washer should be on a regular 120v outlet, correct?
Click to expand...

All i know is there is a 10-30 outlet that we do not use anymore, that I would like to either make an adapter or convert to a L6-30 for the welder. We don't use the outlet anymore, so Im sure the parents will be fine with the conversion.
 
Fst73_360 said:
All i know is there is a 10-30 outlet that we do not use anymore, that I would like to either make an adapter or convert to a L6-30 for the welder. We don't use the outlet anymore, so Im sure the parents will be fine with the conversion.
Click to expand...

You have to change your wall outlet then. Forget about an adapter. The dryer wall outlet wiring is most likely rated for 30A and on a 30A breaker. Whats the welder rated at?
 
ESP47 said:
You have to change your wall outlet then. Forget about an adapter. The dryer wall outlet wiring is most likely rated for 30A and on a 30A breaker. Whats the welder rated at?
Click to expand...
I think the welder is 250, not 100%. As it is not my welder and I am not near it. My friend who the welder belongs to also did the conversion on his washer outlet because he had the same problem and it works fine for him. Meaning he went from 10-30 to L6-30.
 
Well if I cant find someone to make an adapter, which I actually need by this sunday monday.... I might have to covnert the whole outlet to L6-30.
 
turn the breaker off at the panel,remove the dryer outlet{make notes on what wires are hooked up to the outlet}, the green screw is your ground. The other two wires are your 220 volts, 120 volts to ground on either leg. Your new outlet will have three terminals, one of which will be green in color, this is where your ground goes. the other two are where your 220 volts hook up. Make sure to tighten all of your connections really well. Turn the breaker back on and plug your buddies welder up and have at it. By the way, make sure that as you put the outlet into the box none of the wires are going to be touching anything metallic, or each other. Good luck and let us know how it works out.
 
This is what I found

"The difference between the 10-30 and the L6-30 is that the 10-30 is a 3-Pole (2 hots and a neutral) and the L6-30 is a 2-Pole grounding plug (2 hots and a ground). You should change the dryer receptacl to a L6-30 twistlock recpeptacle to match the L6-30 plug the manufacturer is requiring for the welder. Once you remove the dryer receptacle you should see that there are two hots (red and black or possibly both black) and a neutral (white wire); the neutral will be used as a ground with the welder so it should be removed form the neutral bar and connected to the ground bar in the panel (if they are two separate bars). If the neutrals (white wires) and grounds shar a common bar in the panel, you may leave it as is. I want to point out that you can do this because the dryer is on a 30 amp circuit which is also the required circuit ampacity required by the welder."
 
So im going to try this myself. What I understand is put the 2 hots from old plug to same place on new plug. The old plug has a neutral wire that will either originally on a neutral or ground bar. If it is on neutral bar, put it on the ground bar. If its on ground bar leave it alone and just connect to new outlet and then done. Make sure wires do not touch any metal when putting back inside wall. Is there anything I am missing?
 
If the welder is 4 wire the FIRST thing you need to do is find out how it's wired. IF the neutral on the welder 4 wire actually "goes anywhere", IE the welder has internal circuits using the neutral

YOU WILL BE FORCED to upgrade the supply circuit to 4 wire, IE separate ground, separate neutral, and two hots.

The welder itself may be wired 3 wire, IE 2 hots, ground, neutral is unconnected. That is what you need to find out
 
I think you will find, that when you look in your panel box,all of your neutrals and grounds will be terminated on the same bar. In a residential service, they are one and the same coming into your panel. They will only be seperated when going from the main panel to a sub panel, as per national electric code, NEC. Therefore, whether your wire is white or green it still hooks up to the same place in your panel. In my experience, the only welders that I have ever hooked up that needed a seperate neutral and ground, are fully automated welders that are used in industrial fab shops. This has to do with the computer controlling the welder,ie;no variable on the "negative" path of electricity between the computer and the welder itself. Hope everything works out for you, Mike
 
prodart340 said:
I think you will find, that when you look in your panel box,all of your neutrals and grounds will be terminated on the same bar.
Click to expand...

This is true ONLY for the main box, and "never again shall the two meet" by the code.

As I tried to point out, if the neutral is actually NEEDED in an appliance, IE the 240V appliance has 120V circuits, you can NOT use the ground conductor to replace the neutral, and neither can you omit the ground.

If an appliance has a 4 wire connector, and the neutral is actually being used in the appliance, it MUST BE a 4 wire circuit all the way to the box. That is, you cannot simply tie the neutral and grounding conductor together.
 
67Dart273 said:
If the welder is 4 wire the FIRST thing you need to do is find out how it's wired. IF the neutral on the welder 4 wire actually "goes anywhere", IE the welder has internal circuits using the neutral

YOU WILL BE FORCED to upgrade the supply circuit to 4 wire, IE separate ground, separate neutral, and two hots.

The welder itself may be wired 3 wire, IE 2 hots, ground, neutral is unconnected. That is what you need to find out
Click to expand...

The welder has a L6-30 Plug on the end of it which means 3 wire, I believe. 2 hot and a ground I believe because thats what a L6-30 wall outlet is where as a 10-30 is 2 hots and a neutral.
 
Fst73_360 said:
The welder has a L6-30 Plug on the end of it which means 3 wire, I believe. 2 hot and a ground I believe because thats what a L6-30 wall outlet is where as a 10-30 is 2 hots and a neutral.
Click to expand...

Oh, hell

homer-doh-square.jpg


When I looked that thing up I could have SWORN I counted 4 terminals.
 
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