[TheForge] Fwd: odd ball electric plug

[All]

I sent this to my wife's cousin who is a retired industrial electrical. See below for his take on the mystery plug. 

James A.


Begin forwarded message:

> From: Alan <drangd at gmail.com>
> Date: May 21, 2016 at 6:53:24 PM CDT
> To: All <jallcorn at suddenlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] odd ball electric plug
> 
> I am pretty much a North American, retired electrician. 
> http://www.stayonline.com/reference-international-plugs.aspx  Check out the one from Denmark,  The plug sounds IEC to me. IEC is the standard almost everywhere but North America. Lots of industrial places in the USA mix IEC and NEMA together. Keeps people from plugging the wrong thing into the outlet.
> 
> My experience says the flat blade is the ground and the two round ones are for the phases.  So your plug would be 240v.  Take your ohm meter and check round to the case of the blower, guessing here should be open, or zero/no ohms.(both rounds) Repeat with the flat blade, to the case, guessing this should give a reading. Anything from 0.9 to 5.0 ohms. Depends on the connection and how good your meter is. 
> Now test round to round. Might get a low reading or nothing depending on the motor winding. I will bet on nothing.
> 
> 120 volts could be pretty exciting if applied to the case especially you touching the case. I suggest this is not the path to take. It takes less than 100 miliamps (0.1 amps)  to kill.  I am stating death not a shock at 100 miliamps. Please review the page below
> https://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~p616/safety/fatal_current.html
> 
> Last check is there a capacitor on the motor of the blower ?  If so check the MFD level and more importantly the voltage stated on the cap. In general a 120v motor will not have a cap larger than 150V.  Where a 240v motor may have a cap up to 400 volts.
> 
> The US is one of the few places where 120 v is used for motors as much as it is. The rest of the world has figured out if it runs of 240V the wire, controls and amp draw are all less/smaller than at 120 v. Also you do not get into the lopsided meter readings that can cost a bunch of money. Residential electric meters do not average the current draw. Example, if you draw 40 amps on one leg and 100 amps on the other, what does the meter see?   100 amps,  load balancing is a good thing.
> 
> http://inspectapedia.com/electric/Motor_Capacitor_Types.php
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMd9QkinXz4
> 
> I hope this helps, 
> 
> Can you take a pic of the plug and send it to James?
> 
> I like puzzles
> 
> Alan
> Tucson
> 
>> On Sat, May 21, 2016 at 12:12 PM, All <jallcorn at suddenlink.net> wrote:
>> On my phone 
>> ... Look at the second message and see if you can identify the plug the guy describes .
>> James A.
>> 
>> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>>> From: Ron Childers <ron at munlaw.net>
>>> Date: May 16, 2016 at 3:51:37 PM CDT
>>> To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [TheForge] odd ball electric plug
>>> 
>>> Steve, it could be a commercial HVAC 230 volt blower. How big is it?  You could try the hot wire in the flat blade and the white wire to the left one and the green wire in the round one on the bottom. Use a solid wire so you can double it for a tight fit. You can also run the black wire in series with a circuit breaker in case it shorts out so as not to trip the breaker in your shop. It may possibly work  on 115 volts but will draw twice the amperage as it would on 230 volts.  Look at the color of the wires; the 230 wires are red, yellow and blue depending upon the application whether it may have a thermal limiter switch. Why not run a 230 line to it? Send me photos of the motor and the plug and I can email them to KCW Electric in Tallahassee. They are my answer guys. If there are some motor shops or a tech school in the swamp they could tell you by looking at it. Ron
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: TheForge [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Steve Bloom
>>> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2016 1:18 PM
>>> To: TheForge <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>>> Subject: [TheForge] odd ball electric plug
>>> 
>>> Greetings all --
>>> 
>>> Run into something and though I would ask the collective brain for some help.  A friend contributed a squirrel-cage blower to my shop but the plug is unlike anything I've seen.  Looking down the bore, there is the usual round peg at the normal ground position (6 o'clock), the usual flat blade at 3 o'clock, and another round peg at 9 o'clock instead of a blade.  There are no labels, ID info, etc. on the housing. European? DC? 
>>> Before I hook it up to a 120V line and release the magic smoke, I thought I would ask.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> steve
>>> 
>>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
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> "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself."
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