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Distro Frustration

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Paul Miller:
Distro shopping. My main venues all supply CA style 50A feeds and assorted distros which range in condition from decently functional to beyond sketchy. Currently there are three Danley DNA 20K4Pro amps in my rack, with a fourth pending, probably next season. I've been running the amps on 120V 20A circuits and I'd like to run them on 240V 20A circuits.

Ideally I'd like a 3 space rack mount unit with 2 L6-20 receptacles and one 5-20 receptacle per leg, so 4 total L6-20 for the amps and 2 5-20 for everything else. So far the only distros with CA style mains I can seem to find (Lex PRM3KN-9CC, Motion Labs 1105-3-ZZ-151-0001, PDLink RL 2U6E 8EE) are limited to 6 120V 20A circuits (3 per leg) with 5-20 duplex receptacles, and no 240V options.

Does anyone know why this is, am I missing something here? Seems like max current draw per leg would come out the same, 20A x 3 = 60A, so that shouldn't be a problem right? Is this such an uncommon configuration that it doesn't even come as an option? Any other reputable distro manufacturers I should be looking at?

Rob Timmerman:
An L6-20 draws 20A from each leg, so you're not going to get 4 of them and 2x 5-20 on a 50A 240V circuit without doubling things up on breakers.

Matthew Knischewsky:

--- Quote from: Paul Miller on April 30, 2024, 07:01:28 AM ---Distro shopping. My main venues all supply CA style 50A feeds and assorted distros which range in condition from decently functional to beyond sketchy. Currently there are three Danley DNA 20K4Pro amps in my rack, with a fourth pending, probably next season. I've been running the amps on 120V 20A circuits and I'd like to run them on 240V 20A circuits.

Ideally I'd like a 3 space rack mount unit with 2 L6-20 receptacles and one 5-20 receptacle per leg, so 4 total L6-20 for the amps and 2 5-20 for everything else. So far the only distros with CA style mains I can seem to find (Lex PRM3KN-9CC, Motion Labs 1105-3-ZZ-151-0001, PDLink RL 2U6E 8EE) are limited to 6 120V 20A circuits (3 per leg) with 5-20 duplex receptacles, and no 240V options.

Does anyone know why this is, am I missing something here? Seems like max current draw per leg would come out the same, 20A x 3 = 60A, so that shouldn't be a problem right? Is this such an uncommon configuration that it doesn't even come as an option? Any other reputable distro manufacturers I should be looking at?

--- End quote ---

Motion Labs likely would be able to build something suitable though it might not fit into a 3 space rack. 240V circuits need twice as many circuit breakers as 120V so there may not be enough real estate on the panel or inside a 3U box. It's been a few years since I have looked at Motion Labs but they used to build what you want as a custom project as long as it meets code.

Nathan Riddle:

--- Quote from: Rob Timmerman on April 30, 2024, 07:13:55 AM ---An L6-20 draws 20A from each leg, so you're not going to get 4 of them and 2x 5-20 on a 50A 240V circuit without doubling things up on breakers.

--- End quote ---

This assumes 100% duty cycle.

I'd bet you can get 10x DNA20Ks on a 50A 240v circuit as evident from a recent DSLUG post.

Brian Jojade:
Having more branch circuits than the total mains rating isn't uncommon.  That's why there's a main breaker there.

Getting a custom built distro is what you'll probably need to do, since every potential configuration out there isn't possible for manufacturers to have in stock. Custom built vs stock isn't that much different in price.

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