The bare ground wire carries no current and it’s purely a safety circuit.Īs the years went by new homes were built with a dryer outlet already installed in the wall and three-prong line cords were made available to connect the dryer to the heavy outlet. The neutral wire carries minimal current while the red and black carry the heater circuit. The white wire and the bare ground wire parallel one another back to the panel box and are connected together and to the earth. The red and black are interchangeable but typically the red is connected to the right-hand side of the block. The bare copper wire was screwed to the metal frame or shell or the dryer. The three colored wires were attached to the terminal block on the back of the dryer with the white wire going to the center. The fourth wire was 12 gauge, bare copper. Three of the wires were 10 gauge a black, white and red. When electric dryers first came out 60-70 years ago they were all hardwired to the house (no cords were made back then). However, this post will explain the logic behind the national code changes and how to handle these situations.įirst, let’s review a bit of history. I must admit that fewer and fewer homeowners attempt to connect up anything involving 220 V. Of course, they are irritated because they thought all they had to do was plug it in and start drying clothes. When they get home, they find that their house has a three-prong outlet and they don’t know what to do. Often a retailer will sell the customer a four-prong cord (The current code). Second, a new dryer does not come with a line cord. If a person moves an old dryer to a new house they may be faced with an old three-prong line cord on the dryer and a four-prong outlet. Many different situations are encountered. Most folks are frightened away by the heavy wires and leave the job to appliance technicians or electricians. I have seen many novices cause a lot of trouble by mixing heavy and light gauges. Normal lamp cord wiring will get hot and melt. The wires are heavy gauge because the dryer heating element draws 15 Amps. For many people fooling with these heavy wires is very intimidating. Since 2000, electrical code states that four wires are required. For starters, the heavy cable used on an electric dryer may have three or four heavy wires. Eliminate it altogether from the cord.It is very easy to understand why many people get confused when attempting to install an electric dryer. Neutral is insulated for a reason - a variety of faults can energize netural at line potential (120V or 230V). "Why build a cord? Why not use a 4-wire cord and leave neutral flapping in the breeze? It's harmless." No, it's not. It connects normally and safely, either to the generator or hardwired NEMA 14 socket wired into the electrical grid. Now you have an "adapter cable" you can use for North American testing of the equipment. The other end could be any of the following: Really simple: you use a 3-wire cord that has a NEMA 14 male plug, and you don't hook neutral to any wire. The NEMA 14 series is the universal socket, because it provides neutral in case it is needed. Getting from "universal donor" NEMA 14-30 to 240V-only The best cure is to reduce the amount of "imagining rules" that you do, actively avoid sophomorism, and simply listen to best advice from the experienced. Generally, if a person feels brutalized by incessant safety warnings from concerned citizens, it's because they have communicated loathing or alarming ignorance for the above rules or the electrical code generally. Real simple: bolt it to the machine before you plug it into the wall. Now, what happens with a cord that is male plug at one end, and bare wires or lugs at the other? (e.g. That is simply so the energy sources are always shielded (by virtue of the sockets being female). The first corollary of that rule is that no cord may have male plugs on both ends. Things which supply power must have female sockets, and things which draw power must have male plugs.
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