On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 4:45:37 PM UTC-4, Pavel314 wrote:

You could, in theory, convert a 110 volt outlet to 220 volts by moving the white ground wire from the ground buss in the box to the other hot line, giving you 220 volts, but then you run into all the other objections with amps, watts, wire gauge, etc. Not a good idea, because if someone unknowingly plugs the vacuum cleaner into this converted outlet, it will probably burn out. Or up.



Paul

I actually had something like this happen when I worked in a small manufacturing plant.

An electrician installed an extra outlet in my office. The custodian burned out two vaccuum cleaners, didn't tell me until later. But I needed to drill a hole for some reason I no longer remember, and it ran REAL fast. So I put a meter on the outlet.

Sure enough, he'd tapped the lighting circuit instead of running a circuit. I had 277 V, the standard leg-to-neutral industrial lighting supply.