240v outlet

[RVD]

I have a 240v outlet in my garage. The receptacle is a L6-30r.

I would like to buy a 220v tab welder from China. I am assuming that it will come with plugs used in China (the same ones as Australia, etc.)

I have been looking for a converter that will convert the Chinese plug to L6-30p but can't seem to find anything. I suppose I could build one but is that dangerous? Am I doing anything that I should not be doing with electrical outlets and plugs? As you can imagine, I'm a bit new to this stuff.

I have one of those travel adapters so I can convert the chinese plug to USA, EU, UK, etc. if that helps. But obviously none of those options are L6-30p.

 

[amberwolf]

It may not have any plug on it at all, and expect you to wire in whatever your outlet uses.

220-240v outlets (at least here in USA) can be many styles, unlike 110-120v ones, which are almost always the same. So most of the 220-240v things I've dealt with don't come with a plug at all, just the cord (sometimes not even that, like with clothes dryers), and you go to the hardware store and buy the one you need to match your outlet, and wire it in. (though most of them say to have a professional electrician do it, not the actual end-user, as they don't expect the end-user to know how to do this).

 

[RVD]

I did a little more research and it actually comes with a 3 prong plug but it's like the kind used in China/Australia/NZ/etc. It is a 220 version from aliexpress.

It also comes with one of those universal travel adapters that convert it to USA 3 prong.

Even my basic electrical knows enough that if I were to plug it into my wall, it wouldn't work since my wall is only 120v.

I need to figure out a way to plug this into my 240v wall outlet in my garage. I was just out there to take a look and it turns out that it's an L6-20r receptacle.

However, doing google searches and such to find an adapter that will take a chinese plug receptacle to an L6-20p is coming up empty. I suppose I can make one because I'm assuming that it isn't hard to find a chinese plug extension cord and then I can cut off the male side and then buy an L6-20p and wire that in.

I guess I am just looking to make sure this isn't a stupid idea...

 

[friendly1uk]

It is common to sell an item as 240 that is 120 capable.
Why don't you show it us.

 

[Punx0r]

Just cut the original plug off the welder and wire on the appropriate one for your garage outlet?

 

[RVD]

I ended up buying this one: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Micro-pulse-787A-Battery-Spot-Welding-Machine-Recharge-Charging-Capability-Charger-foot-pedal-Butt-Welder-Welding/32570706183.html

It's a 787A+ but I'm pretty sure that it's 220v only (that's what the seller said).

I read on this site that 220v tend to work better than the 120v versions and I have a 240v outlet in my garage for power tools and such so I figured I'd use it (http://www.ebikeschool.com/how-to-build-a-diy-electric-bicycle-lithium-battery-from-18650-cells/).

The seller sent me a picture of the plug and it looks like this: http://www.travelchinatour.com/blog-images/misc/china-power-plug.jpg

It also comes with this travel adapter: http://www.tmart.com/Universal-EU-AU-to-US-AC-POWER-PLUG-Travel-Adapter-White_p171608.html?cc=USD&fixed_price=us_us

However, my wall outlet is this one: https://static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/1PKH7_AS01?$mdmain$

I'm not worried about plugging in a 220v device into a 250v outlet (I think it's variable enough to handle it - I hope?). The amp draw is also fine as the 787A+ draws a max of 10 amps while my outlet can handle 20 amps.

I think I have at least the following options (in order of my preference). I just want to get some thoughts here in case I'm being an idiot and missing something.

1) Find an adapter that can take this chinese plug and convert it to L6-20 (chinese female to L6-20p) and no need to use the supplied travel adapter

2) Buy a L6-20p, cut off the cord of the 787A+ and rewire the cord into the L6-20p

3) Find an adapter that can take a US 3 prong and convert it to L6-20 (use the supplied travel adapter)

4) Convert the wall from an L6-20r to something more else (chinese plug, EU plug, UK plug, etc.). I'd probably pick the EU plug since I travel to the EU a lot and maybe i'll buy something someday and it'd be nice to just plug it into my wall. I have my own travel adapter that I can use to convert the chinese plug to EU (the 2 round ones).

5) Convert the outlet on the wall to a US 3 prong outlet and put a big sticker warning so that no one mistakenly plugs in a 120v US appliance. I don't actually use this outlet for anything anymore (I used to plug in my electric car but I don't have that car anymore) - I don't know if it's safe though to run 220v through a leviton 5-15 (US 3 prong) though. I would use the supplied travel adaptor.

 

[induna]

IMHO #2 is the simple, safe solution -- and it should be cheap too.

 

[amberwolf]

I agree. If you were down here in Phoenix, you could come by and pick up one of the several plugs of that type I have laying around unused (since during the rebuild they changed the wall jacks to a newer type).

 

[RVD]

ok i'll do #2. thanks for the advice folks!

amberwolf, glad to hear about the rebuild.

RVD.

 

[RVD]

Quick update.

I ended up going with #2. I bought a L6-20 plug, chopped off the existing chinese plug and found 3 wires - yellow w/ green stripe, brown, and blue.

Some searching around on the internet basically came to a consensus that I should do the following:

yellow w/ green stripe -> ground
blue - neutral / white / X
brown - live / hot / black / Y

My L6-20p had a green ground, X, and Y so I hooked it up and it all worked!

I did try a test earlier in the day where I converted the chinese plug to USA 3 prong and tried plugging in into 120v. It turned on but would not actually spot weld (even when I raised up the power setting from 40->99).

After doing the conversion it works well and I did some test spot welds on some dead batteries on power 40 and it worked well!

Thanks for all the help as always.

 

[friendly1uk]

Sounds right.


I don't understand why black was chosen for live. In the UK black was used first as as earth then later neutral, with regards to it's colour being a lack of anything. It seems illogical to use it as a live, though through harmonisation we now use it in 3 phase as a live conductor.
When first approached with white and black, I swore blacks absence of anything and white abundance would indicate neutral and live respectively. Thankfully life's lessons have taught me never to expect logical conclusions from regulatory bodies so I looked it up. Then again. And again to be sure.

 

[dogman dan]

Aint the internet great? All the incorrect info is there.

Three prong 220 plugs have two live wires, each one is 110. The third wire is neutral, and no ground. There is no such thing in an American house as a 220v wire. But you have two 110 wires in the feed to your house. At your breaker box, half the house runs on each one. for stuff like stoves, water heaters and dryers, the device has two 110v circuits feeding it. At the breaker, it will have one hot hooked to one of the main feeds to the house, the other hot hooked to the other side of the breaker box to the second wire feeding the house.

4 wire 220 plugs have two hot, one neutral, and one ground.

Nevertheless, you wired your plug right. 8) The green/yellow was the neutral.

 

[Punx0r]

Hope I'm not contradicting you here, Dogman, since you clearly know more about U.S. wiring, but on the welder side, the green/yellow should only be connected to safety protective earth/ground. Along with blue = neutral and brown = live it's standard E.U. single phase colour scheme.

The U.S. system appears to be 2 x 120V lives 180 degrees out of phase (giving 240V phase-to-phase). Google suggests you should be able to connect these two hots directly to the live & neutral on an European appliance. If your outlet is a 4, rather than 3, wire, then I believe the U.S. neutral is left disconnected. Outlet earth goes to appliance earth. Which, if I'm reading right is what you've already done

 

[dogman dan]

Yes, different in Europe.

I'm not sure how stuff connects inside the appliance, it might be that it series connects inside to make 220 in a welder.

But in stuff that works by heater coil, house heaters, electric kilns, hot water heaters, kitchen stoves, it's just half of the appliance coils run on one 110 wire, and the other half runs on the other 110 circuit.

No ground at all in the house plugs was standard for a long time, so you find the three wire plugs in houses built before about 1970 or so.

 

[Punx0r]

I think I read something about the U.S. 220/240V 3-wire sockets combine the two lives in the socket, whereas for a 4 wire ones the combination is made inside the appliance (or the load split half and half as you describe).