240V 150A to 480V ? A

Jraef

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Staff member
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
...This compactor is able to be switched between 230v and 460v. Crazy enough I never seen a switch that can do this I may have to rewire the peckerhead no big deal. I'm just wondering if I can possibly find a better way to calculate the ampacity to of the 480 volt 3 phase breaker and wire compared to a 240 volt 3 phase told to be 150 amp. Not exactly what im used to having to deal with but trying to make it correct.
It is not a "switch" per se, you rewire the connections in the peckerhead to change the voltage. When you change from 230 to 460V, the motor current will be 1/2 of what it is at 230V. Plain and simple.

Your motor starter contactor will be fine (no problem with bigger), but your overload heaters / settings must be changed. In addition, your protective devices (fuses or circuit breaker) must change too, along with your control transformer (assuming there is one) will have to be changed to 480V primary., which changes the primary fuse sizes. If the starter used full voltage coils instead of a control transformer, all of the coils will need to be changed.
 
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