pipe_bender
Member
- Location
- Boston
- Occupation
- Electrician
Yeah EC's typically run a 6/2 NM which comes with a #10 ground.
My 'quick fix' now is shorten the flex, lower the box, bond the box with a ground screw install a 6-50.
Does code require all the pins on a receptacle to be used?
- Thread starter pipe_bender
- Start date
My 'quick fix' now is shorten the flex, lower the box, bond the box with a ground screw install a 6-50.
Would 210.19(A)(4) allow for the neutral to be potentially smaller than the hots? Obviously not for using a 6-2 with a 4-wire receptacle is wrong anyway you slice it. But might the neutral be reduced in some cases?
Elect117
Senior Member
- Location
- California
- Occupation
- Engineer E.E. P.E.
In my personal experience in commercial settings like clothing shops and food processing rooms where everything is a drop cord, it is VERY important that the type of plug be rated for any possible load that they can fit into it.
The average employee working in a sweat shop or production line will just think that if it fits then it works. Especially if the machine turns on.
Not to mention that most of the local disconnects for the cutter motors or print screens are this attachment cord.
Doesn't 406.8 kind of cover this?
"406.8 Noninterchangeability.
Receptacles, cord connectors, and attachment plugs shall be constructed such that receptacle or cord connectors do not accept an attachment plug with a different voltage or current rating from that for which the device is intended. ..."
The average employee working in a sweat shop or production line will just think that if it fits then it works. Especially if the machine turns on.
Not to mention that most of the local disconnects for the cutter motors or print screens are this attachment cord.
Doesn't 406.8 kind of cover this?
"406.8 Noninterchangeability.
Receptacles, cord connectors, and attachment plugs shall be constructed such that receptacle or cord connectors do not accept an attachment plug with a different voltage or current rating from that for which the device is intended. ..."
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
I wish we would abandon the neutral too. If we just run two pole 240V or 208V circuits for all new construction it could fade away like a Polaroid photo tacked up on a bulletin board.Just a little aside, but for years I used to like our Edison system, thought it was cool and handy to be able to get two different voltages. I've come to really hate it actually. This stupid neutral conductor conductor just run everywhere. I wonder how many pounds of unnecessary copper I've pulled in my life running stupid neutrals just things that could very simply be redesigned to not need them.
In essence you're required to run a white wire than wont ever be used not once, to a pin that wont be used, so they can connect a cord that does have that pin in its cord cap but that does not even contain that wire in that cord which goes to the EVSE device that connects to a car with another cord that never ever contains that wire.
All because someone somewhere decided 14-50 should be the 'standard' EV receptacle just in case someone needs to unplug the EVSE and plug in a RV, even though no standards body in the Americas has ever adopted that as a 'standard' .
Or just make the EV owners use 6-50's LOL
All because someone somewhere decided 14-50 should be the 'standard' EV receptacle just in case someone needs to unplug the EVSE and plug in a RV, even though no standards body in the Americas has ever adopted that as a 'standard' .
Or just make the EV owners use 6-50's LOL
brycenesbitt
Senior Member
- Location
- United States
The 6-50 are going to have the same issue. The cheap ones are cheap, and combined with poor installation technique, improper torque, not going to work out well.
Now CMP-12 is bent on taking away a sensible option: which is hard wiring. There you eliminate the entire spring terminal connection issue of the plugs. But they don't want that, so whatever.
brycenesbitt
Senior Member
- Location
- United States
No, because Nissan Leaf's had poor range, but there were so few of them, the drivers had to hang out like groupies at RV parks to breath in a few electrons. And things just evolved from there. NEMA 14-50 is the wrong plug except that it's the common plug, so that makes it the right plug.
winnie
Senior Member
- Location
- Springfield, MA, USA
- Occupation
- Electric motor research
In principal the 14-50 and 6-50 configurations could have been made compatible; have an arrangement where the ground pin and hot pins were in exactly the same configuration, and then have a neutral terminal only on the 14-50. In this hypothetical scenario, a 6-50 plug (missing the ground terminal) could plug into a 14-50 receptacle and work just fine, but a 14-50 plug could not go into a 6-50 receptacle.
Unfortunately that change would require time travel to implement...
Unfortunately that change would require time travel to implement...
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Common around here, particularly on farms to use 10-50 receptacles for straight 240 volt applications. Partly because there is so much out there existing that is portable in nature and when they want to bring that item to an new location they want to be able to plug it in. A common application is augers/conveyor for unloading grain from storage bins into trucks. They have multiple bin locations and move the conveyors/augers from site to site. Years back many also had welders in their shops that had this same plug on it, and if old enough it very well may have been factory supplied that way. I seen many newer welders where they cut a 6-50 plug off and put a 10-50 plug on it as well as a few that make adapter cords to go either way with these two configurations.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
It will take more than just "Us" only running circuits with no neutral though. Along comes the appliances that were designed to use a neutral and they either call us saying it won't plug into what it there or they end up having the neutral carried over the EGC. I guess some the expanded GFCI requirements in more recent years will still give them additional problems if they try using the EGC to carry the neutral.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
I gave up insisting on changing those out.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
For the longest time they were like 1/4 to 1/3 the price of a 6-50. More recently I have noticed they are both similarly priced from my supply house but maybe still the difference it used to be at big box stores.
pipe_bender
Member
- Location
- Boston
- Occupation
- Electrician
Sounds like code allows it as they are not using 10-50 for any other configuration then.
There is a fabrication shop here that uses 10-50's exclusively, there are no neutrals pulled to the receptacles, just 2 hots, the 10-50's are grounded to the box/ and EMT is the ground. Service is a wild leg so even if you pulled a neutral you might be on the stinger leg.
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
Just put 240V appliances on the self. No reason not to buy a 240V appliance if that is what the building is wired for. Everything else uses SMPS already.
Says who?
There is practically no difference between the "EV" outlet designed for continuous duty and the standard one made by Legrand. Open them up and tell me what's different other than a little EV symbol. Ink isn't that expensive.
50A outlet is already 156% of the actual current draw for a mobile 32A charger.
There are some definitely junk 14-50Rs out there, but maybe just don't install one of those.
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Says the entirety of this thread.
I company I work for had an issue with some 14-50's at a senior living condo complex, our guys cut the cable so the terminations stayed on there (they were pretty baked but not as bad as other's I have seen recently) then the owner had them sent them to the manufacturer at his own expense, he's a demanding guy and likes to get to the bottom of stuff. There was some back and forth about the chargers, the settings and the brand then nothing and about a year or more later the manufacturer said the issue was with the aluminum terminations, I think they asked if they had been greased with noalox . All the new heavy duty EV receptacles now have silently dropped support for aluminum cable.
They are CU only.
Same issue as house outlets and AL wire in the 1970's IMO.