Change hard-wiring to plug-in - DIY Chatroom

katzpjs · 02-13-2005, 11:41 AM

My new range hood must be hard-wired. Can I join the wire ends (black to black, white to white) to a cord so that it can be plugged in to a receptacle?

jbfan · 02-13-2005, 12:22 PM

No, unless the instructions say you can plug this in, it must be hardwired.

katzpjs · 02-13-2005, 12:50 PM

Can it be completely re-wired so it can be plugged into a receptacle?

jbfan · 02-13-2005, 07:57 PM

If it is not listed to plug in, them the answer is no

Teetorbilt · 02-14-2005, 12:33 AM

Just curious, why are you so interested in a plug? The wires should be right there. Whoops! The wiring is not in place, correct? New install in old home?

katzpjs · 02-15-2005, 09:39 AM

You got it, Teeterbuilt. But I'm gonna get my best man (the landlord - my nephew) to fix it all up.
Thanks to all of you for your input

Speedy Petey · 02-16-2005, 11:56 PM

Glad to see you got it figured out.
I have never seen a range hood which could be cord connected.

Harry_Henderson · 06-28-2006, 04:00 PM

Hi came across this site and I am having the same exact problem I just bought a range hood and want to install it in an older house I only have a plug nearby. I wanted to wire the hood with a plug but I see it's not possible??? Just out of curiosity why can't it be done? and can anyone give some advice on what to do to install the range hood.If it helps there is a black wire, white wire, and a green wire that is screwed onto the actual hood.
thank you very much - Harry

Harry_Henderson · 06-28-2006, 10:00 PM

please help...

telemicus · 06-29-2006, 02:33 PM

In theory, there is no reason why you could not use a plug to wire out the hood. As long as the plug and socket have the live, neutral and ground connections. Also, the plug or the circuit that you are wiring onto would have to be fused with the correct rating of fuse or circuit breaker.

There may be local electrical wiring regulations that would prevent you from doing it.

I believe in the US that the live wire is usually black, the neutral is usually white and the ground is the green color. (Sorry, I live in the UK)

The reason the ground is connected directly to the metal part of your hood Harry is that in the event that the live circuit should come in contact with the metal hood the current would flow to ground and short-circuit the fuse (causing a blown fuse or trip) thus preventing anyone receiving an electrical shock from the live case.

Hope this helps!!!

tribe_fan · 06-29-2006, 02:56 PM

I don't think Speedy and jbfan were stating that it would not "work" - they were stating that it should not be done for safety and code reasons.

Things that are designed be plugged in would have proper strain reliefs, along with other reasons that may not be apparrent to us "DIY" guys.

LanterDan · 07-05-2006, 02:13 AM

One other reason putting plugs on things like this should not be done, is you can potentially be bitten by touching the ends of the plug after you pull it out. I learned this the hard way with 30A 480V VFD drive/industrial motor. I used to work in a laboratory type environment and some guys would love to wire them up this way so when something mechanical went wrong they could yank the plug out and wave it around to prove that power had been cut.

IvoryRing · 07-05-2006, 09:51 AM

Dan,

I think there is a material difference between an industrial motor (and 480V/30A is likely big enough that there is plenty of re-generation going on during wind-down of the shaft) and a range hood fan. I will accept that there is a small amount of potential energy available as the fan slows down, but I would be rather surprised if it was enough to be a danger.

About your lab guys... well, that makes some sense - as they have a demonstrable disconnect of all conductors.

Your industrial drive&motor... I'm surprised you wouldn't do an E-stop (or even just a regular stop) before pulling the plug... especially as I understand drives (and I'd freely admit this is only a vague understanding) they (and in theory the entire machine) come to 'zero potential energy' much faster by hitting E-stop than they do by yanking the cord. I also thought that level of stuff pretty much required 'break before discon' in order to prevent issues with arcing. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding your situation - are you saying you got hit after the shaft was stopped? From what?

LanterDan · 07-05-2006, 12:56 PM

IvoryRing,

Yes when I got hit, the motor had been stopped (just doing maintence). I presume it was from the capacitors on the input power filter (I think they are relativily small, but it still got my attention). Back to the orginal point though, I could easily see power filters of this sort in low power residential products (such as a range hood) and just meant it as one example of something that could be there you'd likely never think of.

As to the lab appilication: I don't think you can get regen back through a VFD. In emergency we would first hit the off button for the drive, which provides the break before disconnect, and then then unplug. A couple motors drive some very high interia rotors mounted some really good bearings, spin down times in the tens of minutes. When your very expensive experiment starts making horrible noises this seems like forever, and sooner or later some asks, "are we sure we turned it off?". Regarding coming to a stop quicker, I wouldn't consider myself a drive expert either, but as I understand it the drive won't let you put power back into the grid, so only way to slow it down fater is with an electric brake. We did add one of these recently to one motor; the resistor box (w/ forced air) is about the size of the drive itself. Perhaps small ones comes with e-brake included in the same package.