Plug Wire breakdown.

[WorthFlorida]

Thanks for the valuable information. Can we conclude, based on the multimeter, that the red is hot and the two black are neutral and ground shoved in together?

With electric, NEVER assume anything. I'm getting loud since fire and death can result from poor electrical work and miss understanding. Anyone answering question especially electrical questions, must be to code and never suggest short cuts or assumptions.

No! one black wire is the neutral from the breaker panel and the other feeds the next outlet. The second red wire goes thought this electrical box and that is another circuit going to another outlet or light. The black wire in this case is a "shared neutral" not a ground. You do not have any ground wires.

Look closely and there are two different size wires. The feed wires looks like 12 or 10 gauge and the second red and the one black wire at the outlet to the next outlet is looks like 14 or 12 gauge.

 

[FreeLander]

I just assumed that most (all?) of Europe and the Middle East is 50 Hz. Is it 50 Hz at the location shown?

Any reason you've avoided specifying what the 3000W load is?

Cheers, Wayne

I wouldn't know, my multimeter doesn't have a Hz reading feature.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[FreeLander]

With electric, NEVER assume anything. I'm getting loud since fire and death can result from poor electrical work and miss understanding. Anyone answering question especially electrical questions, must be to code and never suggest short cuts or assumptions.

No! one black wire is the neutral from the breaker panel and the other feeds the next outlet. The second red wire goes thought this electrical box and that is another circuit going to another outlet or light. The black wire in this case is a "shared neutral" not a ground. You do not have any ground wires and twi different circuit.

Look closely and there are two different size wires. The feed wires looks like 12 gauge and the second red and the one black wire at the outlet to the next outlet is looks like 14 gauge.

View attachment 82837

That makes sense! I just noticed the gauge difference indeed!

Question: When I do replace this outlet with a receptacle. Should I snug both blacks in the neutral just like it is now?

 

[wwhitney]

You haven't determined well enough what you have to install any receptacles yet. You don't seem to have a protective earth (ground, EGC), so you can't install a receptacle as you normally would in the US.

As to the multimeter, it sounds like you are connecting one lead to one wire at a time, with the other lead disconnected, or maybe you are holding the other lead? It's possible that could give you reasonable voltage to ground readings via your body's capacitive coupling to ground, I'm not sure. But that's not how you take a voltage reading, you measure between two conductors. Which from the pictures you could only do without disconnecting anything if the connections at the back of the switch give you access to stick your probe in, and there would only be on measurement to take, between black and red. Which is likely 230V.

The wiring on that switch and in that box makes no sense to me. The two different gauges, the one switch connection having two wires going to it, the one wire red wire going straight through. That's not an arrangement you'd expect to see in the US.

How is the A/C that this controls itself connected? Is it hardwired?

Cheers, Wayne

 

[wwhitney]

I wouldn't know, my multimeter doesn't have a Hz reading feature.

Well, either you need to determine that your load is agnostic on 50 Hz vs 60 Hz (say a computer with a switched mode power supply, or an electric resistance heater with no motors or fans), or you need to get a meter that will read frequency and check the frequency.

If you're trying to run a motor load designed for 60 Hz 240V on 50 Hz 230V, probably best just to give up. It is rare that it would be possible, and knowing when it would be OK requires considerable knowledge about motors, more than I have.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[FreeLander]

You haven't determined well enough what you have to install any receptacles yet. You don't seem to have a protective earth (ground, EGC), so you can't install a receptacle as you normally would in the US.

As to the multimeter, it sounds like you are connecting one lead to one wire at a time, with the other lead disconnected, or maybe you are holding the other lead? It's possible that could give you reasonable voltage to ground readings via your body's capacitive coupling to ground, I'm not sure. But that's not how you take a voltage reading, you measure between two conductors. Which from the pictures you could only do without disconnecting anything if the connections at the back of the switch give you access to stick your probe in, and there would only be on measurement to take, between black and red. Which is likely 230V.

The wiring on that switch and in that box makes no sense to me. The two different gauges, the one switch connection having two wires going to it, the one wire red wire going straight through. That's not an arrangement you'd expect to see in the US.

How is the A/C that this controls itself connected? Is it hardwired?

Cheers, Wayne

Yes. Weird. This is a very old house. I did take the measurements between two conductors and got v230. There's no AC, didn't get one, but this plug was made for it.

 

[wwhitney]

There's no AC, didn't get one, but this plug was made for it.

The way you keep calling a switch a plug is very confusing.

But now I understand a bit better what the pictures show. That switch is DPST, and the top two connection points are for the load, which was never installed. The little flex conduit stub out is likewise for the load connection.

So you have 230V 2-wire available, but you don't seem to have a ground wire. You could install a NEMA 2 receptacle, but not a NEMA 6. For a NEMA 6 receptacle, you'll need to figure out what the local practice is with respect to ground wires (possibly called protective earth there) and how to get a ground wire to that location, or what the proper alternative is.

Plus there's the 50 Hz vs 60 Hz issue. If you overcome that, I would suggest getting a local electrician to install the regular local receptacle. And then making up the appropriate small pigtail cable to connect your load to that receptacle, assuming you've determined it's safe to do so.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[FreeLander]

The way you keep calling a switch a plug is very confusing.

But now I understand a bit better what the pictures show. That switch is DPST, and the top two connection points are for the load, which was never installed. The little flex conduit stub out is likewise for the load connection.

So you have 230V 2-wire available, but you don't seem to have a ground wire. You could install a NEMA 2 receptacle, but not a NEMA 6. For a NEMA 6 receptacle, you'll need to figure out what the local practice is with respect to ground wires (possibly called protective earth there) and how to get a ground wire to that location, or what the proper alternative is.

Plus there's the 50 Hz vs 60 Hz issue. If you overcome that, I would suggest getting a local electrician to install the regular local receptacle. And then making up the appropriate small pigtail cable to connect your load to that receptacle, assuming you've determined it's safe to do so.

Cheers, Wayne

Thanks, Wayne. This is some professional advice!

 

[wwhitney]

Thanks, Wayne. This is some professional advice!

No, I'm an amateur, nobody pays me for advice. : - )

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Reach4]

If UAE, then it's 50 Hz.

UAE appears to use 400 volt 3-phase wye configuration for main commercial and area distribution , with the center being supplied as a neutral to houses along with a single phase.

If installing an outlet, I would really recommend a GFCI outlet. American 120 vac to ground can give a pretty good shock, and even the 240 volt circuits here only have 120 volts to ground. UAE 230 volts to ground shocking somebody would be really bad.

 

[WorthFlorida]

I wouldn't know, my multimeter doesn't have a Hz reading feature.

Other than the USA, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, a few central America countries, and Japan, the rest of the world is 50 HZ @ 220-240v single phase.

 

[Reach4]

Other than the USA, Canada and Japan, the rest of the world is 50 HZ @ 220-240v single phase.

Germany is largely 3 phase, even to houses. There is a bit of that in the US.

 

[Jadnashua]

In the USA (and probably some other places), ground and neutral are connected at the panel but THEY DO NOT SERVE THE SAME PURPOSES!

Ground is a safety device, and under normal circumstances should NEVER have any current on it. Neutral is a POWER conductor, and will always have current on it when something is operating. You do NOT want to connect ground and neutral anywhere else except at the power panel, at least based on US code. What might be done elsewhere, I can't say, but the reasoning for doing that is worldwide, but maybe not the code requirement.

Using ground for a current carrying conductor could expose you to safety hazards elsewhere in the building...don't connect them together.

Having an alternate path for power using the ground is done if there's a PROBLEM, and can ensure that the breaker or fuse will trip, otherwise, you may not know there's an issue.

 

[FreeLander]

The way you keep calling a switch a plug is very confusing.

But now I understand a bit better what the pictures show. That switch is DPST, and the top two connection points are for the load, which was never installed. The little flex conduit stub out is likewise for the load connection.

So you have 230V 2-wire available, but you don't seem to have a ground wire. You could install a NEMA 2 receptacle, but not a NEMA 6. For a NEMA 6 receptacle, you'll need to figure out what the local practice is with respect to ground wires (possibly called protective earth there) and how to get a ground wire to that location, or what the proper alternative is.

Plus there's the 50 Hz vs 60 Hz issue. If you overcome that, I would suggest getting a local electrician to install the regular local receptacle. And then making up the appropriate small pigtail cable to connect your load to that receptacle, assuming you've determined it's safe to do so.

Cheers, Wayne

Thank you, Wayne.
I went with your explanation, which turned out to be 100% right. I was able to successfully change this.