In article ,
loutent wrote:

I had an electrical question a few months ago about this, and got
several varied responses - mainly because I did not have enough
information I believe. Now I actually have something to
work with!

I have a brand new Grizzly 1023SL sitting in the basement
(almost) ready to plug in. I have a copper,10 gauge (3 wire - ground,
neutral, hot) coming from a 30 amp (unused) breaker which used to
power a water heater (now gas). Our house has 200 amp service and
is less than 20 years old (just for reference).

Grizzly recommends 20 amp/220. Do I need to change
out the 30 breaker for a 20? If I leave it as is, will I
harm the magnetic switch or anything else?

Thanks for any input.

Lou

If you have ground/neutral/hot, it's 110, not 220. If you're trying to
run a motor designed for 220, you need to have two hots (one from column
A and one from column B). Typically you would do this by putting on a
different receptacle and moving rewiring the panel side of the circuit
to go to a double-pole breaker. Standard practice is to wrap red tape
around the white wire at both ends to indicate that it's now a hot
conductor.

Be that as it may, amperage requirements are *minimum* requirements. If
the machine needs 20 amps, it's perfectly fine to plug it into a 30 amp
circuit. It won't hurt the circuit and it won't hurt the machine.

You do need to make sure you've got the voltage right. Many motors can
be configured to run on either 110 or 220 by moving a jumper or
connecting to different terminals, but make sure you got it right. A
mixup in either direction won't be good.