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[Kemper Watson]

 One of my venues has a 50 amp 4 wire range plug that Ive been using for years with a small panel broken down into two 20 amp breakers running the two main power amps. I just bought a new Motion Labs rat pack with an L 14 - 30 imput. What would happen if I just made a short tail down to an L 14-30 and plugged it into the Rac Pac. I could probably get someone to swap out the breakers and the plug but was hoping to just make up a cable and be done.. Any one see a real issue ?

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

One of my venues has a 50 amp 4 wire range plug that Ive been using for years with a small panel broken down into two 20 amp breakers running the two main power amps. I just bought a new Motion Labs rat pack with an L 14 - 30 imput. What would happen if I just made a short tail down to an L 14-30 and plugged it into the Rac Pac. I could probably get someone to swap out the breakers and the plug but was hoping to just make up a cable and be done.. Any one see a real issue ?

As long as your venue has a correctly-wired 4-wire 14-50 receptacle, making an adapter for 14-50P -> L14-30R is reasonably safe; there is a theoretical risk of overheating your adapter cable if you have enough over-subscribed demand on your rat pack circuits that are more than 30A/leg continuous draw but not enough to trip the 50A breaker, but that's probably not a likely scenario unless you are trying to max out your circuits with incandescent PAR64s.

You would not want to use any 3-wire receptacle such as a 6-50 as your source power, as you don't want to bond neutral and ground anywhere except at the building service entrance.

[Scott Holtzman]

One of my venues has a 50 amp 4 wire range plug that Ive been using for years with a small panel broken down into two 20 amp breakers running the two main power amps. I just bought a new Motion Labs rat pack with an L 14 - 30 imput. What would happen if I just made a short tail down to an L 14-30 and plugged it into the Rac Pac. I could probably get someone to swap out the breakers and the plug but was hoping to just make up a cable and be done.. Any one see a real issue ?

We have tons of those short punts.  That's what I have always heard them called.  Just make sure you are not combining neutrals.  You also want to make sure the overcurrent is covered if the downstream inlet is a lower value.

[Kemper Watson]

We have tons of those short punts.  That's what I have always heard them called.  Just make sure you are not combining neutrals.  You also want to make sure the overcurrent is covered if the downstream inlet is a lower value.

 
  It's a fairly new properly wired range plug. No bonded neutrals. No more than two power amps running a rig at about 100 db or so. Never came close to popping the 20 amp breakers on my other distro.

[Kemper Watson]

 





As long as your venue has a correctly-wired 4-wire 14-50 receptacle, making an adapter for 14-50P -> L14-30R is reasonably safe; there is a theoretical risk of overheating your adapter cable if you have enough over-subscribed demand on your rat pack circuits that are more than 30A/leg continuous draw but not enough to trip the 50A breaker, but that's probably not a likely scenario unless you are trying to max out your circuits with incandescent PAR64s.

You would not want to use any 3-wire receptacle such as a 6-50 as your source power, as you don't want to bond neutral and ground anywhere except at the building service entrance.






Its a 4 wire outlet and the will be two amps running a PA who's level never goes above 100 db. Jazz show. We dont even see yellow lights on the console. LED lights are on two  completely separate L 5-30 outlets..

[John Schalk]

One of my venues has a 50 amp 4 wire range plug that Ive been using for years with a small panel broken down into two 20 amp breakers running the two main power amps. I just bought a new Motion Labs rat pack with an L 14 - 30 imput. What would happen if I just made a short tail down to an L 14-30 and plugged it into the Rac Pac. I could probably get someone to swap out the breakers and the plug but was hoping to just make up a cable and be done.. Any one see a real issue ?

You can buy these pretty cheaply.  I picked up this one to go along with an L14-30 to two 20-amp circuits cable (with breakers) that I bought.  This gives me a couple of options for getting dedicated circuits depending on the power available at the venue. 

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Prong-Adapter-Generator/dp/B076ZTWL4K

[Brian Jojade]

What kind of protection does the Rat Pack have in it?  If it's got a 30 amp mains breaker, then there's no issue at all.  If it doesn't have a mains cable, you want to determine what gauge wire was used inside.  If there's a #6 coming out of the connector to the distro block, you just need to make sure to use a #6 feeder cable and adaptor.  Yeah, the connector may be stamped at 30 amps, but the pins on the 30 amp and 50 amp are the same, just a different configuration.

Worst case scenario, if you want to do it absolutely correctly, would be to make an adaptor that goes into a breaker box that has a 30 amp breaker which then feeds your rat pack.

[Kemper Watson]

What kind of protection does the Rat Pack have in it?  If it's got a 30 amp mains breaker, then there's no issue at all.  If it doesn't have a mains cable, you want to determine what gauge wire was used inside.  If there's a #6 coming out of the connector to the distro block, you just need to make sure to use a #6 feeder cable and adaptor.  Yeah, the connector may be stamped at 30 amps, but the pins on the 30 amp and 50 amp are the same, just a different configuration.

Worst case scenario, if you want to do it absolutely correctly, would be to make an adaptor that goes into a breaker box that has a 30 amp breaker which then feeds your rat pack.

   It has 4 circuits. Each its own breaker. Two 30 and two 20's

[Kemper Watson]

You can buy these pretty cheaply.  I picked up this one to go along with an L14-30 to two 20-amp circuits cable (with breakers) that I bought.  This gives me a couple of options for getting dedicated circuits depending on the power available at the venue. 

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Prong-Adapter-Generator/dp/B076ZTWL4K

Bought this. Show went off without any issues. Thanks to all that replied

[ProSoundWeb Community]