guruofnothing
Member
- Location
- Stanwood, WA USA
I have what may amount to a really, really dumb question. I have searched for days to find any kind of answer and I can't come up with any kind of direction in the matter. Your professional advice is needed.
I have a service panel (400 amp) with a 200 amp sub panel. I also have a gate entrance to my somewhat rural property that is 650 feet away from that panel. I wanted to put a light, a camera and maybe an automation solution for the gate at that location. It all amounts to basically a battery tender keeping a couple group 31 automotive batteries topped off. So not much of a load at all. I have to make it all pass code though, of course. I used a wire calculator that accounted for all the common stuff including conduit or direct bury. Using it's generic wisdom (having asked me all the right questions?) I went with 2-2-4 Al direct bury rated (URD?) cable. The question at hand is... how the heck do you connect that to ANYTHING? There is no breaker I can find that will take #2 cable under 50 amp in 120 or 240 varieties. I CAN and probably will have to, install a sub panel out at the gate out of necessity, even though I really only need an outlet, since that circuit isn't going to handle a large draw according to the calculations. What kind of hardware is going to make an inspector happy? Any advice is welcome... and I guess criticism is probably warranted as well.
So for the rest of the boring minutia, in case you care. I HAD thought about solar to avoid all of this. Short version is I don't have enough sun exposure due to trees and being in Western Washington where we have two seasons... warm rain and cold rain. We don't tan, we rust. I tried a panel setup that my friend had just to see if I could do something and I actually can but it will take way more panel and money than I want to invest. Yes, more expensive than the danged cable! I ran around all sorts of scenarios and bucking up and burying mobile home feeder cable was the least expensive option I could come up with. Except I may have screwed myself as I can't figure out how to connect the stuff to low amperage hardware. I am not an electrician (obviously by my eyes rolled back in my head) but I have done LOTS of it on my own projects, all to code and inspected/passed. So this isn't an attempt to get around the system. I want it CORRECT. And safe. My initial thought was to just put in a 50 amp 240v breaker that is Al/Cu listed and do a sub panel with a single 15 amp at the gate and sink a couple ground rods to complete the plan. But I think that an inspector is going to climb my frame for undersized conductor. It would NEVER see anywhere near 15 amps at the end point but I may not own the place until the end of time... so there is that.
I have a service panel (400 amp) with a 200 amp sub panel. I also have a gate entrance to my somewhat rural property that is 650 feet away from that panel. I wanted to put a light, a camera and maybe an automation solution for the gate at that location. It all amounts to basically a battery tender keeping a couple group 31 automotive batteries topped off. So not much of a load at all. I have to make it all pass code though, of course. I used a wire calculator that accounted for all the common stuff including conduit or direct bury. Using it's generic wisdom (having asked me all the right questions?) I went with 2-2-4 Al direct bury rated (URD?) cable. The question at hand is... how the heck do you connect that to ANYTHING? There is no breaker I can find that will take #2 cable under 50 amp in 120 or 240 varieties. I CAN and probably will have to, install a sub panel out at the gate out of necessity, even though I really only need an outlet, since that circuit isn't going to handle a large draw according to the calculations. What kind of hardware is going to make an inspector happy? Any advice is welcome... and I guess criticism is probably warranted as well.
So for the rest of the boring minutia, in case you care. I HAD thought about solar to avoid all of this. Short version is I don't have enough sun exposure due to trees and being in Western Washington where we have two seasons... warm rain and cold rain. We don't tan, we rust. I tried a panel setup that my friend had just to see if I could do something and I actually can but it will take way more panel and money than I want to invest. Yes, more expensive than the danged cable! I ran around all sorts of scenarios and bucking up and burying mobile home feeder cable was the least expensive option I could come up with. Except I may have screwed myself as I can't figure out how to connect the stuff to low amperage hardware. I am not an electrician (obviously by my eyes rolled back in my head) but I have done LOTS of it on my own projects, all to code and inspected/passed. So this isn't an attempt to get around the system. I want it CORRECT. And safe. My initial thought was to just put in a 50 amp 240v breaker that is Al/Cu listed and do a sub panel with a single 15 amp at the gate and sink a couple ground rods to complete the plan. But I think that an inspector is going to climb my frame for undersized conductor. It would NEVER see anywhere near 15 amps at the end point but I may not own the place until the end of time... so there is that.
