Electrical Wiring Question

[camaroman1181]

Ok, heres the deal...

I'm wiring up my new air compressor for my garage. On the electric motor, it states "230 Volts", and on a tag on the side it says its a single phase (not three phase).

I'm plugging this into my generator, with a 220, 4 pin connector. The 4 pins are arranged in a circle, with one of the pins slightly longer than the rest.

Now, being it a 4 pin connector, i bought a length of 12/3 wire, along with getting the plug off one of the maintenence guys at work.

The mainenence guy also helped me hook it up last night. Hit the switch, and it fired up and started to run. However, it seemed like it was not running optimally. Now, he only hooked up 3 wires, as he resoned that 2 of the 4 pins on the connector were neutrals, and the other 2 were hot. Therefore, only 1 neutral needed to be connected.

let me state now, that I'm an idiot when it comes to wiring. It never clicked when i was in college. DC I'm better at, but AC is pretty much over my head. Soo, anything he was talking about could have been true..

After the compressor was running for a minute or two, we could smell something a little hot. We shut it down, then fired it back up.. still smelled hot.. The outside of the motor was not hot, but after we shut it down the second time, we could see a little smoke coming from inside the motor with our flashlights. Not a lot at all.. couldnt be seen without the flashlights.

Is this hooked up right? Do I need to hook up the remaining 4th wire to the neutral? Or is the motor just breaking in and will do this for a little while?

Advice?

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Electrical Wiring Question

Sounds like 1) you have NO ground, which in itself is pretty unsafe, and 2) 12/3 might be just a hair too small, and 3) you need to use the last neutral. Its similar to a drain. If you have 5 hoses running to your kitchen sink, and you turn them all at once, the sink can drain the water, but not fast enough because it is too small to accommodate all of it. Same with electricity. I wouldn't bother with Romex for this, I would run 4 individual wires thru some greenfield (krinkle hose stuff). 12 gauge wire would do fine.


That last neutral needs to be connected, you're going to burn the garage down.

[12secondv6]

Re: Electrical Wiring Question

sorry - no idea

[camaroman1181]

Re: Electrical Wiring Question

thank you for the assistance! I already have one neutral hooked up, but the analogy of the faucet makes perfect sense. I kinda wondered when he was doing it, if it was correct, but him being one of our electricians at work, thought nothing of it...

I shall hook it up myself tonight, but connect the other ground.. Thank you for the feedback, and I'll let you know if stuff goes up in smoke or not..