WIRING A 240 V CIRCUIT FOR YOUR STILL EASY STEP BY STEP
Welcome back, hobbyists, distillers brewers, and winemakers. So today we discuss wiring and distillation, we're going to distill some meat, but I needed a 220 circuit. So I got a wire. First of all a lot of an explanation about electricity and how you can do your own wiring. Limited amount, it'd be safe and if you're not comfortable, please don't touch it. It's really not that difficult now, I have always been and always will be transparent. I make mistakes on a regular basis. We all do.
I've got my P ID and wired. I've got a 240-volt outlet and I've got 120-volt outlet depending on you know. The p IDs are like cruise control in the car the 220-volt plug, it's one of the plugs are always going to be horizontal, they always going to vertical, it depend because 125-volt isolated circuit has the a blade that opposite direction, mixed up that's the way they make it. So what I've got to do is put 200 and the 250 volts 20 amp receptacle, it's only got three screws on it, it's got a hot lead, and aground.
I'm gonna use a 10 gauge wire than I actually need because if I'm running the 3500-watt element on 220 volts, I'm gonna play eight amps, 10 gauge wire will more than handle it. I'm gonna wire it into my fuse box and it will be end where I plug in my P ID. Once I add the plug toolbox that I can just like play around and plug into. My electrical panel my outlet where I've got all my fuses. I’ll explain how I'm going to wire a 240-volt circuit for my still off of one box. Please be very careful if you're not comfortable, don't touch it. I'm going to break it down for you pretty simple on and this is deadly. So be very cautious, turn the main power off, and then you won't have any problems.
I do that when via a remote switch outside. The inside the box really normally Looks like comes in many different configurations. The convention is that power comes in the bottom and goes out the top. Pretty simple depending on who wires your box. I've got the hot wires. I've got 120 volts or neutral wire and groundwater. Now that's the power coming into the box and it's just connecting to lugs and your boxes ready to be hot in order for you to get electricity out, you go through the fuse. The hundred and 20 legs, one’s the bar goes all the way up to the top there's a hundred and 20-volt leg all the way up to the top. If we have just 120 volts circuit, which I have the very first one. A 20 amp circuit, and 120 volts I know that because I've got one black wire coming from the fuse and then I've got my white wire comes over to my neutral bus.
I've got a ground wire that goes to my ground bus. That means that I've got one hot, one neutral in one ground, that's 120 volts. That's what the box is supplied. Now in order to get to 140 volts, you've got to have both and as long as they're out of phase, that's another topic all in itself. In most instances, they will be 180 degrees out of phase. So that means when this one's positive, this one negative you know how AC moves back and forth so they're out of phase. If I use both wires they don't compete with each other they add together and you'll have 240 volts.
I've got 121 20 so that means if I use fuse and a fuse on the other side the bar in another bar then add together, I got 240 volts that's what I'm getting ready to do. There are two ways of wiring 240, you can wire 240 or three-wire configuration or a four-wire configuration and that would be a hot, a neutral, and a ground for the for wire configuration. In a three-wire configuration is a hot new ground in which they fit themselves to many different applications.
For our purposes, I'm gonna do a three-wire because it's simple and direct. The multimeter uses a Wheatstone bridge, just so you're going to have a fluctuation until you measure what they call the potential difference and that's between hot underground. Between the leg, the hot leg on the black, and the ground got a potential difference of 123.7 volts. You'll always get a fluctuation it's called root mean square RMS. You've also got on the Samoan, we did ground in the black, and you get what's at 123.7. If we do the black and the neutral, you also get 123.7. The 123.7 we call 120 volts.
Now we go from the red one to the neutral, we get 121.6 or 120 volts, but if we also go from the red one to the ground, We get another hundred and 21.5. So we've got 120 volts on each one of the legs. What happens when we connect them together? we get 247 246 247 volts. You put them both together, they multiply or they add together. If I put it on this bar, which is it goes from this lug and put it on the bar we get 246.4 volts. That means I'm gonna use a fuse. It is a 30 amp fuse, got two connectors on it. The two connectors will connect on rings.
So all I've got to do is make sure that I get a rib from the side and a rib from the other side and have 240 volts on that one circuit. The spaces that separate is easy to see once you get it opened up and you look at it, you'll see the bar goes across. So the one and the one share that same lug but if you skip go to another one, they share opposite lugs. So now I've got a fuse in and I'm actually using a logo on each side. So if I connect the two together when we turn that on now, the fuses On and I checked it in that one now, I've got 246 bolts. So I'll just run two wires from the ground and I'll put my plug on the other end and then I can plug into it and this is my safety. That's me off.
It's really not that difficult once you think about it, it's not gonna hurt anything, you find somebody else to it. I'm getting ready to hook up a wire to the receptacle, and we're going to discuss the part. Just make sure you run your wire through the box first. Because once you put the receptacle on, then you'll be taking it apart. I've done it 100 times. The first thing I did was I took some spades. I put them on the ends of all the leads, just makes it a whole lot easier to attach to the receptacle. Those come in a box, you can get them at any hardware store, and you just slide them on and then use the crimping tool. It just comes with it. All you have to do is crimp them and cut them to the top, they stay and they hold tight and that's your connection.
Remember we had the black and the white to the fuse. We had two different fuses and we had 120 volts off of each leg 180 degrees out of phase. So if I turn the fuse on right now this would be hot, and I'd have 240 volts, or I'd have 110 volts. I got the two screws, the two brass screws on the side, and all receptacles. All receptacles will have very distinct they'll have a brass screw for a hot lead and you'll notice there'll be a silver screw and the silver screws for the neutral lead. It has two brass screws designed for two hot leads. It's just a simple process of just put the spade underneath the screw head and then screw the screw tight.
Remember there's your three-wire, a 220 volt or 240-volt circuit and you got a four-wire in most of that are large appliances, what they call them appliance ground to earth ground for any voltage leakage. That may be potentially dangerous. Put in a case, we slide inside the box then I'll add the two screws, the two retainer screws when it goes in the top when it goes in the bottom. I'm not trying to insult anybody's intelligence but I just want to make sure I discuss everything by golly.
I've got my receptacle I've got my plug, lo and behold, I can plug that in. So now when I turn on my fuse, and it just backed up with a call heating it up, it's not electricity I can work that P ID and we'll be on our way.
We're going to distill it so, in the meantime