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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => AC Power and Grounding => Topic started by: Jared Koopman on September 13, 2014, 08:39:24 AM
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Hi.
I have two 50ft 12/4 cables with quad edison boxes on one end. The other end is bare, can I safely put an edison plug on the end and use like that or do I have to use the 4 prong 20 amp plug?
Most of my setups use edison so I would prefer that if possible. I know I will lose the 2 circuits of the cable but honestly I don't care at this point, I just need it functional and safe.
Thanks
Jared
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Hi.
I have two 50ft 12/4 cables with quad edison boxes on one end. The other end is bare, can I safely put an edison plug on the end and use like that or do I have to use the 4 prong 20 amp plug?
Most of my setups use edison so I would prefer that if possible. I know I will lose the 2 circuits of the cable but honestly I don't care at this point, I just need it functional and safe.
Thanks
Jared
I would consider installing the proper twist-lock plugs on your cables (L 14-20?), then adding a NEMA 5-15 adapter for plugging into Edison outlets. That way you reduce your voltage drop by 33% (I think) over the run since you're using both legs of the extension cable, but with a common neutral. And then you can always use your quad boxes to plug into a 4-wire distro if you're in that situation.
See http://www.customavrack.com/products/988-5-15p-plug-adapters.aspx for every kind of adapter possible.
What do you wire monkeys think. Is this a reasonable solution? That's how I would do it and it appears to follow all code and UL requirements I can think of.
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Hi.
I have two 50ft 12/4 cables with quad edison boxes on one end. The other end is bare, can I safely put an edison plug on the end and use like that or do I have to use the 4 prong 20 amp plug?
Most of my setups use edison so I would prefer that if possible. I know I will lose the 2 circuits of the cable but honestly I don't care at this point, I just need it functional and safe.
Thanks
Jared
I would ignore the red wire and get 'er done.
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If you ignore the red wire, you still need to rewire the quad-or only us it as a duplex.
Mike' suggestion is more flexible.
If you don't need flexibility, do as TJ suggests-but rewire the quad. It might be tempting to just hook both red and black wires to the same terminal-might even be doable, but almost certainly wouldn't meet UL specs for the plug.
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Hi.
I have two 50ft 12/4 cables with quad edison boxes on one end. The other end is bare, can I safely put an edison plug on the end and use like that or do I have to use the 4 prong 20 amp plug?
Most of my setups use edison so I would prefer that if possible. I know I will lose the 2 circuits of the cable but honestly I don't care at this point, I just need it functional and safe.
Thanks
Jared
How is the quad box wired? Sounds like it might have been a cheater tail, wired to a 4 wire dryer plug, or a L14-30.
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Hi.
I have two 50ft 12/4 cables with quad edison boxes on one end. The other end is bare, can I safely put an edison plug on the end and use like that or do I have to use the 4 prong 20 amp plug?
Most of my setups use edison so I would prefer that if possible. I know I will lose the 2 circuits of the cable but honestly I don't care at this point, I just need it functional and safe.
Thanks
Jared
As far as I can see there is two options.
A) terminate with L14-20.
B) remove and recycle the 12/4 for another use, replace with 12/3, terminate with u-ground.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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As far as I can see there is two options.
A) terminate with L14-20.
B) remove and recycle the 12/4 for another use, replace with 12/3, terminate with u-ground.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Why replace the 12/4?
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As far as I can see there is two options.
A) terminate with L14-20.
B) remove and recycle the 12/4 for another use, replace with 12/3, terminate with u-ground.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Put an Edison on the cord, using the green, white and black wires. Re-wire the quad box so all outlets are fed from these conductors. Enjoy a nice cup of coffee.
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Put an Edison on the cord, using the green, white and black wires. Re-wire the quad box so all outlets are fed from these conductors. Enjoy a nice cup of coffee.
That is my plan. For now it will be fine. Once we start doing more with 3 phase I will switch it back over.
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That is my plan. For now it will be fine. Once we start doing more with 3 phase I will switch it back over.
You need 5 conductors for 3 phase.
To re-purpose this assembly later, you could use 2 hot legs from 3 phase, use a 20 amp 2 pole breaker, L14-20 connectors and re-wire the quad box so each duplex is supplied by 1 phase leg. There are other implications that are sure to be posited, but low current applications (like back line) won't impose a significant contribution to neutral current.
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Why replace the 12/4?
Unnecessary bulk?
The 12/4 would make good speaker cable.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I would consider installing the proper twist-lock plugs on your cables (L 14-20?), then adding a NEMA 5-15 adapter for plugging into Edison outlets. That way you reduce your voltage drop by 33% (I think) over the run since you're using both legs of the extension cable, but with a common neutral. And then you can always use your quad boxes to plug into a 4-wire distro if you're in that situation.
See http://www.customavrack.com/products/988-5-15p-plug-adapters.aspx for every kind of adapter possible.
What do you wire monkeys think. Is this a reasonable solution? That's how I would do it and it appears to follow all code and UL requirements I can think of.
So I put L14-20P's on each end.
Now my thought was to make a short adaptor cable with an Edison plug on one end that ties to only one leg (black, green, white in this case) of an L14-20R. I know this means I can only use one half of the quad but I can live with that.
My question is, if only one leg of the L14-20 is used (the black duplex in my case) and the neutral and ground are shared between the red and black duplex's, does this make the the red duplex "hot" and dangerous?
(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/e802280022f9599bbd05d40b2d1cabf5.jpg)(http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14/09/22/45fcd037ef7f596fbe458787f41b914d.jpg)
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No
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Now my thought was to make a short adaptor cable with an Edison plug on one end that ties to only one leg (black, green, white in this case) of an L14-20R. I know this means I can only use one half of the quad but I can live with that.
In the female end of your adapter, if the terminals provide space for it*, you could run a jumper between the black and the red slots, then you'll be able to use both halves of the quad box. It will effectively make it as though there was no red wire, and the hot sides of the receptacles were jumpered just like the neutral sides (white wire). Think of it this way: instead of the jumper being in the quad box, it's in the female end of the adapter. The effect is the same.
*NOTE: You can only do the jumper if the terminal is either the kind that allows you to wrap the wire around the screw (a method not advised with stranded wire) or where you can insert a wire between plates on each side of the screw. The jumper should be the same gauge and stranding as the main conductor. Many connectors only allow a single wire inserted between the plates that are clamped together by the screw; there isn't a good way to jumper with this style. Under no circumstances should you split the strands of a single conductor between two terminals, as that could result in an overloaded conductor between the split and the terminals.
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In the female end of your adapter, if the terminals provide space for it*, you could run a jumper between the black and the red slots, then you'll be able to use both halves of the quad box. It will effectively make it as though there was no red wire, and the hot sides of the receptacles were jumpered just like the neutral sides (white wire). Think of it this way: instead of the jumper being in the quad box, it's in the female end of the adapter. The effect is the same.
*NOTE: You can only do the jumper if the terminal is either the kind that allows you to wrap the wire around the screw (a method not advised with stranded wire) or where you can insert a wire between plates on each side of the screw. The jumper should be the same gauge and stranding as the main conductor. Many connectors only allow a single wire inserted between the plates that are clamped together by the screw; there isn't a good way to jumper with this style. Under no circumstances should you split the strands of a single conductor between two terminals, as that could result in an overloaded conductor between the split and the terminals.
Thank you that was my next question!
Jared