Conveyor toaster trouble

D

Dsnorm

Member
Location
Nashville
Occupation
Electrician
I’m having a continual problem of 120 V/15 amp conveyor toasters heating up at the plug and burning the receptacle. These things run continuously every day, so I changed them out to hospital grade 20 amp GFI receptacle, hoping that the stronger tension would solve the problem, but it burned out that one as well. Any good solutions? I was thinking about just cutting off the plug off the cord and hard wiring it directly inside a four square metal box with a GFI blank device or GFI breaker protecting it. Has anybody else had this issue? Do you think a twist lock plug would be better than hardwire?
 
Did you replace the cord after the first failure? I have seen a number of cases where the cause of this type of failure is the molded plug on the cord. It seems sometimes the conductors are not correctly connected to the plug blades.
 
If there is heat, there is resistance, and a voltage drop. If there is a voltage drop, the motor will draw more amps and create more heat where the resistance is. Yeah, hard wire it to a 20Amp motor rated switch and install a GFI breaker.
 
TwoBlocked said:
If there is heat, there is resistance, and a voltage drop. If there is a voltage drop, the motor will draw more amps and create more heat where the resistance is. Yeah, hard wire it to a 20Amp motor rated switch and install a GFI breaker.
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I can't imagine the motor in a conveyor toaster is larger enough to make any difference. I would expect the heating element to be over 95% of the load.
 
Take a look at the nameplate on the thing, or clamp the cord. Friend of the wife's picked up a toaster conveyor on her last trip to China, and the store "helpfully" replaced the Type I cord with a 5-15P. The thing is rated for 3kW; it is left as an exercise to the reader to determine why their breaker kept tripping...
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Did you replace the cord after the first failure? I have seen a number of cases where the cause of this type of failure is the molded plug on the cord. It seems sometimes the conductors are not correctly connected to the
Click to expand...

Dsnorm said:
I’m having a continual problem of 120 V/15 amp conveyor toasters heating up at the plug and burning the receptacle. These things run continuously every day, so I changed them out to hospital grade 20 amp GFI receptacle, hoping that the stronger tension would solve the problem, but it burned out that one as well. Any good solutions? I was thinking about just cutting off the plug off the cord and hard wiring it directly inside a four square metal box with a GFI blank device or GFI breaker protecting it. Has anybody else had this issue? Do you think a twist lock plug would be better than hardwire?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the input. I guess I’ll just cut the end off and try hard wiring it. The name plate reads about 15 A, and the plug is nice and tight in the hospital grade receptacle, but it’s still very warm to the touch and I guess it’s enough to cause problems. I should probably go ahead and upgrade the cord to a heavier gauge as well.
 
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