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[Corey Scogin]

How did you conclude the CS connector was 3 wire?
If you had looked where the wires go you would see 4 connections.
 It has X, Y, N & G.

/Snark coming...

 Why did you not use this great internet to actually look up the connector rather than take the time to write down for all to see that you are clearly not qualified to be building any electrical gear. Buy a properly built distro before you kill some one.

End snark\

And, yes, I am not having a happy day

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Damn Rob.  That's harsh.  The attached image was the only pinout I saw for the 50A Cali connector the first time before I edited that post.  THERE ISN'T A NEUTRAL THERE.  I don't appreciate your snark even with start and end tags.  You assume I'm not qualified to build any electrical gear just because I missed the proper pinout diagram?  I don't think that's fair.

[Jared Koopman]

The other reason that such an adapter (two Edisons into an L14-20) is a bad idea, if not illegal, is that if there is a 240V volt load across the two hots, once you plug one Edison in, the line blade of the second one will have 120V on it, and that is a shock hazard.  In most cases, you only have 120V loads on the stringer, so it's not a problem, but since that isn't guaranteed, such adapters are frowned upon (although they certainly exist  ).

If you have to use such an adapter, just build it with a single Edison feeding both hots in the L14-20.  You can only supply  half the power, but you can't overload the neutral, and there can't be any exposed live terminals.

GTD

So what is the safest way to use this stringer? Does it need to be re-wired?

[Rob Spence]

So what is the safest way to use this stringer? Does it need to be re-wired?

The safest way is the way it was built, to use on a 120/240v circuit.

The adapter is the problem. It is never legal and most times could be very unsafe.

There are insufficient wires in the stringer to use on 120v by only changing the cord cap. The problem was described above.

If you want to use it on 120v, then the only safe modification would be to open up each intermediate box and move the outlets connected to the red wire to the black one and then put a 120v cord cap on connecting only the black, white and green.



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[Rob Spence]

Damn Rob.  That's harsh.  The attached image was the only pinout I saw for the 50A Cali connector the first time before I edited that post.  THERE ISN'T A NEUTRAL THERE.  I don't appreciate your snark even with start and end tags.  You assume I'm not qualified to build any electrical gear just because I missed the proper pinout diagram?  I don't think that's fair.

Yes, harsh. Fair isn't relevant. This is dangerous stuff. The internet is not an electricians training class.


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[Lyle Williams]

For me a great part of the challenge is being clearly compliant with the applicable standards.

Any sort of y-combiner (as opposed to y-splitter) in power would be enough of a red flag to have me shut down.

I could drill holes in my construction-grade power strips to link grounds, but that may or may not pass an inspection.  I could make a male-male power cable with only earth pins present to tie grounds together, but that would fail any and every inspection (despite being electrically equivalent to the solution I use).  I just run regular power and bond the racks together.  Every inspector is 100% happy with that.

[Mike Sokol]

Yes, harsh. Fair isn't relevant. This is dangerous stuff. The internet is not an electricians training class.

Now everybody play nice... and as I noted before, once you get into 240-volt power, you had BETTER know what you're doing. One of the projects I'm working on is an electrical safety course for sound and lighting technicians. This would be both online as well as a day-long training course at a number of trade shows next year.

One thing interesting is that there's almost no information about arc flash safety for sound and lighting technicians. And that includes hearing protection. For instance, an arc flash explosion not only has the potential to blind and burn you, but many electricians have also lost their hearing from the blast of an arc flash. And there are few things worse than a deaf sound engineer. While a large arc flash is generally not possible from the limited energy available in a 20-amp branch circuit, once you get into cam-locks and circuit breakers over 100-amps, an arc flash gets very possible and very dangerous.

Let's all be careful out there. And if someone comes to this forum with a dangerous question, then let's inform them as gently but firmly as possible. You really don't want to be on the "Earn While You Learn Program" while hooking up live power. It's way too dangerous.

[Jared Koopman]

The safest way is the way it was built, to use on a 120/240v circuit.

The adapter is the problem. It is never legal and most times could be very unsafe.

There are insufficient wires in the stringer to use on 120v by only changing the cord cap. The problem was described above.

If you want to use it on 120v, then the only safe modification would be to open up each intermediate box and move the outlets connected to the red wire to the black one and then put a 120v cord cap on connecting only the black, white and green.



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Thank you

[Mike Pyle]

I had some small single rack unit distros built that can be plugged into two 120v circuits. The neutrals are isolated from each other, so it is essentially two distros in a single chassis. The front end of each circuit up to the breaker is wired with 10 gauge, and the input connectors are 32a powercon, so it can be plugged into a 30a service. One could also make a breakout adapter to plug it into an L16-30R or similar (the reverse of what you are doing with your dual-edison plug adapter).

[ProSoundWeb Community]