diy solar

diy solar

Should I power with 120v or 240v What are the benefits and pros and cons of running 120v vs. 240v under solar power?

True, a 240 pump doesn't need the neutral. In my case I wanted 120VAC in the shed. But a question, do they make romex with a red, black and ground only? I don't recall seeing that but it may well exist. I'll look next time I am in the local hardware store and see if they carry such a thing.
No, romex with a red and black will also have a neutral with the ground… but you can get black, white and ground romex… electricity doesn’t care what color the insulation is, and you can put red tape, or mark the exposed white wire with red marker…
 
No, romex with a red and black will also have a neutral with the ground… but you can get black, white and ground romex… electricity doesn’t care what color the insulation is, and you can put red tape, or mark the exposed white wire with red marker…
I'm curious how inspectors are with marking with tape? The marker sounds better to me, I'd be worried that tape might fall off. Maybe do both so that it remains clear in decades to come how the system is wired.
 
I'm curious how inspectors are with marking with tape? The marker sounds better to me, I'd be worried that tape might fall off. Maybe do both so that it remains clear in decades to come how the system is wired.
Tape is the convention in NEC

I personally would use the 4c with R/G/Bk/bare. I’m not an electricken but I thinkish that I recall that being “an acceptable method” the electrician I use mentioned when we were talking about a “moment” I had when I wired into an existing 220 outlet for a 220 compressor in the building I was renting for a shop. Wiring apparently was ‘mixed’ somewhere I couldn’t find. When I had it wired up I flipped the breaker on and, well, hehe, at 1AM on a snowing, 10*F night the lights went out. Went outside, all the houses were dark. Discovered it blew a line fuse on a pole a quarter mile down the road LOL
I had to review in my head what I did and after looking in the jbox finally decided it wasn’t my fault.
My solution was I bought a new dual breaker and wired it myself; alas when I flipped the breaker I put in everything ran fine. I was ready with a flashlight cuz I was doubting myself still but clearly putting the wires in the box myself had a different result.
No tape + wrong wiring = woops
The absence of tape doesn’t equal correct wiring. I never put a meter on it, I just took the wires off the pre-existing breaker and removed them from the panel. I never tried to troubleshoot.
 
I'm curious how inspectors are with marking with tape? The marker sounds better to me, I'd be worried that tape might fall off. Maybe do both so that it remains clear in decades to come how the system is wired.
Inspectors call it remarking... it is code for appliance connections. Stringing feeders, remarking is limited to 4ga and larger.
 
Inspectors call it remarking... it is code for appliance connections. Stringing feeders, remarking is limited to 4ga and larger.
And for repurposing or making ‘travelers’ for three-way switches, etc
I’ve seen it on interconnected smoke detectors but not sure if that’s ok by code.
 
Ummm... that's not how it's supposed to work. What you're doing is dead grounding your system to the hull and dumping current into the hull. This is going to chew any metal you have to rust in no time flat and potentially damage your electrical system & generator if not zap you every time you grab a railing! We just had a ship down for a month because they didn't fix the grounds and it destroyed all the main engine bearings in a 4 story tall engine!

The reason there is no Neutral is because your system is designed to take 120v from L1 and 120v from L2 and provide the 240v that your boat is built to use. If you need 120v for N.American stuff, you need to get transformers involved that will create that Neutral line and/or step it to 60v on each leg to provide 120v.

For reference, the 60v on each leg is how American ships are wired and built, everyone else outside of North America uses 220v systems so they're wired 120-120 with no neutral.

Anything that is designed to run 220v either needs to be 120-120 or 240-N, so those lights that were mentioned are expecting a hot leg of 120-240v and a neutral leg of 0v

I'm an electrician on container ships and any ground is a "Bad Thing" out here.

@Jodi: Please, PLEASE for the safety of yourself and your vessel, undo this ASAP! You're going to need to get some serious 8kw transformers involved if you want to run 110v stuff on that boat, either that or start tracking down suppliers for 220v stuff.
Thank you for the advice
 
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