1/2 horsepower. I share my power with a bathroom fixtures supplier, and they have the keys to the fuse box. Daytimes it's no problem. They are friendly enough about switching my power back on. But, if they aren't there and the power goes off, then I'm stuck for the day. People have suggested UPS's, but I don't see any fit for my application. Any way to simply limit the current spike for this motor on startup?
WHAT? You're running an entire flat and shop on a single breaker?
Well, 100A circuit breaker boxes with 20 spaces, including 5 breakers, go for $52 here in the USA. Double it for Germany, I guess. 200A
30-space boxes with 5 breakers go for $99.97 at HomeDepot. If you run the wiring and install the box, then let the electrician verify it's up to code and connect it, it'll save you $500 or so.
Inconveniences like that can end up causing fires, so it's good that you're going to do something to prevent it. The current sensing relay is probably your cheapest, safest, best bet.
Well, it's not the cost of the box and breakers. It's how much juice is com ing to it which is at issue. If I can get away with running an extra line o r two from the courtyard box, I'm in good shape. If I need to run more wire from the main building, then I'm looking at bonfires of money.
That makes sense. I've never learned the maths on this, but sort of underst and.
Many stoves and instantaneous water heaters here run on 1 ph. 400v. So it w ould appear that as long as you have 3 ph. going into the building, then it 's easy enough to run two wires to the local box and get your 400v. As I sa id, most older buildings don't have this option, so either there's only one phase running into the building, or the construction electricians didn't f oresee the usefulness (or they did, but saw $$$ in the future by not doing it then!). In 1965 there were no blow dryers or microwave ovens, and in our flat there's not even central hot water to the kitchen! There was a stupid useless little 5 liter pressureless boiler under the sink when we moved in . I fixed that by running copper pipe from the bathroom, but I'm not sure t hat was even legal... Well, Germans lived pretty low to the ground in those days compared to the suburban house I grew up in in Ohio, but at least our houses and buildings don't burn down easily!
My shop troubles aside, I live in a 1965 five story apartment building wher e juice is also tight. I've got 4 16a/230v breakers to run my 1000 sq.ft. f lat. When I gut renovated the kitchen (where the power comes into the unit) , I had to be somewhat creative about how to partition things so that no br eaker was overloaded. The box and meter are across the common hallway, so r unning additional wires/circuits is cost prohibitive. We don't typically ha ve metal conduit in this kind of housing. The wiring is just tacked up to t he base layer, and plastered over. It's pretty primitive, but we mostly get away with it. Since it's 230v, no wire has to carry the amps that North Am erican wires do.
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