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60 amp Breaker 4 Ott or 6 Ott wire ?
- Thread starter rdgrimes1@aol.
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@Cosmacelf put together this…
Red, black & green is appropriate for a wall connector. Most hard wired evse are hot hot ground. No neutral.
Red, black & green is appropriate for a wall connector. Most hard wired evse are hot hot ground. No neutral.
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Yeah, what he said. Since the two hots are identical, you can use 6 gauge black wire for both Since it doesn’t matter which leg is connected where. This is all assuming you are installing a Wall Connector (which, I guess, is implied with a 60A breaker). So no white (neutral) wire. Oh and the ground wire can be 8 gauge to save yourself a few pennies.@Cosmacelf put together this…
Red, black & green is appropriate for a wall connector. Most hard wired evse are hot hot ground. No neutral.
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1). THHN must be installed in conduit or cannot be used.
2). Make sure you match your breaker and termination (I suppose WC) temp rating. Personally hades would freeze before I used 90c, and I’m not so sure I like 75c either. That’s HOT.
3). Personally I would run a neutral also just so I had it should i own other things down the road.
4). SER does not need conduit..
5). If cost a factor consider aluminum, although it must be done correctly.
2). Make sure you match your breaker and termination (I suppose WC) temp rating. Personally hades would freeze before I used 90c, and I’m not so sure I like 75c either. That’s HOT.
3). Personally I would run a neutral also just so I had it should i own other things down the road.
4). SER does not need conduit..
5). If cost a factor consider aluminum, although it must be done correctly.
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While I agree that aluminum is a good cost savings, if using a Tesla wall charger it specifies cu only
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THHN is just one type of insulation, others like XHHW are perfectly acceptable if that is what is available.
6 AWG is commonly sold in black (or was, Ive been retired awhile) and marked with colored tape near the ends
I would not consider aluminum conductors but if you do you should coat the stripped ends with noalox or similar paste.
6 AWG is commonly sold in black (or was, Ive been retired awhile) and marked with colored tape near the ends
I would not consider aluminum conductors but if you do you should coat the stripped ends with noalox or similar paste.
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Indeed. If I was running long distanced I's use aluminum SER in the attic and go up and down chases in copper.
BTW, I don't see a temperature rating on the Wall Connector. Aren't I right in saying if it's not labeled otherwise it has to ba assumed to be 60C? Or am I missing it?
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It is listed in the product manual, and I'm almost certain it is 75 degrees C, which covers the use case of standard wires in conduit.
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That particular line is something that is unfortunately some really confusing wording in the manual that tends to lead people off on the wrong track. It says to use wire that has at least a 90 degree insulation rating. Well, guess what? Even Romex, which has a usage limit at 60 degrees as a whole, also has wires inside it that ARE covered with 90 degree rated insulation, so that does fit with what the manual is saying.
But elsewhere in the manual, I think it does specify that the wire lugs inside the wall connector are only 75 degree usage rated.
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That 90C 6 AWG is very confusing. They should either not state the preferred wire size and delegate to code, or give valid examples including all the nuances of NM-B, THHN in conduit, etc. That's a slippery slope though, so they should just cite "follow code."
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Layman, but I find it amazing that anybody accepts 90C. I bend, reform, etc PVC w/boiling water all the time. Thats's 100C! 140F is considered scalding temperatures for hot water. That's 60C! People talk about cheap 14-50's melting all the time, but I suspect most of those folks are running THHN into outlets not certified for it. I had Leviton 14-50 in use for quite a while, but I sure as heck didn't have TTHN hooked up to it.
Color me an old man, but if any wiring or termination I touch is scalding hot I'm deeply into "not good w/it" territory.
Color me an old man, but if any wiring or termination I touch is scalding hot I'm deeply into "not good w/it" territory.
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It's never used in residential applications. The wire lugs in breakers and receptacles that are residential rated are no higher than the 75 C rating. Only some industrial things use it apparently.
No, that has nothing to do with it. THHN is the bog-standard wire that is used in pretty much any wire-in-conduit application. It's used everywhere, in houses, apartments, commercial buildings, etc. It's just as normal and plain vanilla as it gets. And every kind of receptacle would be properly certified to take it. It's used at the 75 C temperature rating, which is the standard middle ground kind of level.
But you are thinking of this as in "This is the common temperature which it will normally be when operating." That's not really it. That's a high temperature limit where the insulation is in danger of melting. It normally will not be near that hot.
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The temperature rating is for the insulation as Rocky_H said. 90*C is higher than you need, but that doesn’t make it bad.
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The temperature rating of wire is just how hot the insulation can consistently get without breaking down. In a climate controlled environment, you can run 90C wire at it's stated amperage (in conduit, breaker and all connections need to be 90C too) and the wire would never reach anything close to 90C. However, if you were running that same wire through a hot attic (>50C) , you would want to de-rate the amperage to the 60C rating or even less.
The amount of current you can run through even romex for short periods is pretty amazing, but it's not the sort of thing you want to do with concealed wiring in your house, due to breakdown over time.
The amount of current you can run through even romex for short periods is pretty amazing, but it's not the sort of thing you want to do with concealed wiring in your house, due to breakdown over time.
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