Questions regarding 240v outlet

Is there a neutral wire at those outlets, or just the 2 hots? You'd need neutral for 120V.

I don't know yet as i haven't opened them up. Assuming there is, i can simply arbitrarily select one hot and the neutral wire those two to the new 120v outlet, correct?

Go> >

The plug should not fit. If you forced it somehow, the clock would almost certainly be destroyed, perhaps spectacularly.

Years ago I plugged my electric razor into a 240v outlet in Israel. It immediately went up in a puff of blue smoke. I expect your clock would meet a similar fate.

Does the outlet have 3 holes or 4? If 3 (which is almost certain to be the case) you have no neutral and cannot use it for anything but devices that need pure 240v. If 4, you could use it as the basis for a multiwire circuit.

BUT, if 3 you can pull replace the 240 breaker with a 120v breaker; and put the left over hot (hopefully a white wire) into the neutral bus. You will now have, as soon as you replace the outlet with a 120v outlet, a 120v circuit! Obviously you have to be certain that you replace all the 240 components with their 120v counterpart, and that you get everything sized properly, but it is not difficult.

Check the AC input to the alarm clock. If it can accept 100V - 240V you should be ok. If not you will probably damage it with 220V.

Only to your alarm clock, and maybe to the house.

Those will burn up.

Don't forget not to try to use your electric razor in Europe either, unless it has a switch to set it for 240.

cannot be done safely. breaker and wire and outlet must all match. alarm clock would normally trip a 15 amp breaker. but even with an adapter, improperly feeding large available amperage into a low wattage device is tempting a fire when the alarm clock fails.

farseer wrote:

I do my own electrical work except for three-phase (240v).

Within the last two years, I knew the line going to my dryer was problematic. It was just a matter of replacing the line from the box to the outlet - less than 40 feet. I paid someone to do it. That's how afraid I am about three-phase.

Electricity kills people and burns down houses. If you do not respect it, you could die from either the shock or smoke inhalation.

Dick

No. (Duh.) You can plug a 240V device into them.

Oh -- the alarm clock won't work any more, either.

Call an electrician. Please. You don't even begin to realize the danger you could be creating. At a bare minimum, at least go to a library or a home center (like Home Depot or Lowes) and get yourself a book on residential electrical wiring. Electricity is dangerous to those who don't understand it, and (no offense intended) your questions show that you're in that group.

A very large percentage of recent product have auto ranging power supplies that are happy with 100-240V 50/60Hz. With these all you need to worry about is plug adapters.

Pete C.

If you're changing to 120V, you can repurpose the other hot as your neutral (suitably marked of course). Indeed if this is a single run that served a window A/C it's probably 12/2 w/ ground with the white wire tagged black or red with tape.

Pete C.

Well, the wire can be heavier than it needs to be. And the wire and breaker can both be heavier than the outlet will allow to be plugged in.

After all we plug an 11 amp Hoover vacuum cleaner into the same outlet

Huh? I don't think he will know that you're kidding.

If 20 amps will start a fire, 15 amps can probably do so too.

After all we plug an 11 amp Hoover vacuum cleaner into the same outlet we plug a 1/10 of an amp radio. And that could be a 15 amp outlet or a 20 amp outlet. Any of those appliances could some day have a short.

You should consider ceasing to do your own electrical work . At least until you learn what "three phase" means.

Jeff

You can not plug a 120v plug into a 240v receptacle unless you physically take a pair of pliers or something and bend.

If there is a neutral there you can change the receptacle out to a

Or change it to a split-wired duplex receptacle.

You'd still have to change the breaker to the appropriate amperage though.

Chris

farseer a =E9crit :

to step down from 240v to 120v u'll need a step down transformer, the simplest solution would be to rewire ur 240v line to a 120v distribution in ur main panel, but ur need to change some breakers, and perhaps a diferentail breaker,, i recommend you see a professional

if ur clock is made for 120v you will burn the componet in it, a capacitor might explode in it, so device have switches to change from

system21 u568567

Check out his game Galactic Conquest

Nonsense.

Breakers are sized to the conductor. The ampacity of a conductor does not depend on voltage. A 20A circuit requires 12ga wire, for example, regardless of whether it's a 240V or 120V circuit.

You sure about that?

My reading of tables 210.21(B)(2), 210.21(B)(3) and 210.24 is that when using a given receptacle, there are limits as to the breaker amperage, regardless of wire size.

For instance, you cannot put a 15A receptacle on a 30A or higher circuit, and you can only put one on a 20A circuit if it is a duplex receptacle or there are other receptacles on the same circuit.

Motors and arc welders are excepted from the above, but that's a whole other story.

Chris

Absolutely.

That doesn't have anything at all to do with voltage, though -- and you appeared to be saying that changing from 240V to 120V would require changing the breaker to a different amperage as well, which is not the case.

Right, but that's not the same issue. I think we're talking about two different things.