I went out and bought the intermatic t104r since I read the plastic timers suck. Now I know a little about electrical as I rewired my house but this is new to me. the timer is rated 40 amps 240v and I'd like to run a total of 6 lights off this with them all being 240v so that they'd be pulling around 5 amps a 1000 watt light which would be 30 amps total. So far my idea is to run from the main electrical panel a 8/2 connected to a 40 amp two pole breaker using the black and white (usually a neutral) as hots with the ground connected to the bus bar. Easy enough. Connect the two hots to the line one and two on the timer. So far so good? now this is where Im getting confused. My neighbor who says he's been an electrican for years says that if I were to use 12/2 wires on the two loads on the timer he said since these are 20 amp lines that'd if I were to try and go for 6 romex 12/2s on the timer which would pull 30 amps the wires wouldn't be able to handle this. is he full of it? I thought that they're only pulling 5 amps a piece so why would there be a problem? He said running 4 12/2s would be safe as this would pull 20 amps to the outlets that the lights connect to. Should I use 10/2s instead? He also said that each line 1 and 2 to the timer from the main breaker to the timer would carry 40 amps a piece. What do you guys think?
well question is little written strange but you seem to know what u doing. i have same timer, wired from panel - 8/2 then LOAD is 12/2 wire to an outlet for a ballast. 12/2 wire u can pull 17 amps safe. you should run 3 SEPERATE12/2 wires from load to outlet. thats 3 outlets for 6 ballast. makes it VERY safe, cause u pulling max 10 amps per 12/2... be sure that your ballast are wired 240, wire the outlets 240 P
okay thanks. I'm going to use only a 20 amp 240v 12/2 breaker for this timer to run 3 lines for now then just get another timer and wire it the same when i want to power up 3 more lights. one more question. when you wire the two pole 20 amp breaker from the main service panel to the timer, should I have a subpanel for the 12/2 lines that connect to the outlets with breakers to be more safe or just run the lines straight from the timer to the outlets for the ballasts? such as main service panel breaker to timer. Timer to subpanel breakers to outlets. or is that overkill? i rather just run the timer straight to the outlets without a subpanel and breakers if that makes sense.
yes straight out the timer to an outlet, the breaker is before the timer in the panel, no other panel is needed