Seawulf wrote:
John Grabowski wrote:
I'm guessing that the 12-2 romex is too small for the 18 amp load. The
nameplate reads 120volt/18amps but in reality it's possible that your
voltage is only 110 or 115 with a load on. In that case your motor will
draw more than 18 amps. The neutral connection may have also been a
little
loose to cause the charring.
The dust collector should have been wired with a 30 amp circuit or
changed
to operate at 220 volts.
I get your point. But, if the charring of the insulation on the
respective Neutral wire was due to an over-Amperage, (i.e. enough to
create sufficient heat for sufficient time)I would expect the breaker to
trip. Of course, that assumes the breaker actually trips IAW spec -
which I do NOT know to be the case.
Someone else suggested that a more-or-less continuous operation of the
dust collector, would, itself, require a de-rating of the cable
amperage load spec and, as you suggest, moving to a 10 gauge cable. But,
in fact, the dust collector runs very intermittently. I usually have it
connected to my small 13 inch thickness planer, which is rarely run for
more than 5 continuous minutes less than an average of twice a week.
Otherwise, I use it periodically to clean out the bandsaw and table saw
accumulations.
I wonder if that white wire was nicked or had some broken strands? You
were operating it near its maximum rating, and it might have had a bad
spot that overheated.
In any case, I would probably rewire the blower motor for 240V and put
it on a 2-pole breaker. If you don't have a space for it*, either
double it up with the bandsaw, or tie the handles together on those 20A
single breakers (use the breaker manufacturer's handle ties, or else
pull the single breakers out and replace with a proper 2-pole breaker)
and run the dust collector on 240V onthe same circuit as your 120V
stuff. (not sure if this meets code requirements or not, but it's close)
*From your earlier description, I assume you have a little 100A panel
with 6 spaces, and it's already full with two 2-pole breakers and two
single 20A breakers.
Bob
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