Electrical Questions - How to connect neutral and ground?

[Dom G]

I'm getting very close to being able to fire my bench up...maybe by this weekend. By next weekend for sure.

My plan is to mount a 100 amp subpanel to the back of the upper section of my msd based bench. I'm starting with 6 vacuum motors and plan to use three (3) 15 amp 230 volt breakers. Each hot leg of each breaker will feed a motor through a light switch.

Here are my questions given the above.

1. Can I run a large neutral wire from the neutral bar in the subpanel to three motors? So essentially I'll have two neutral wires going from the subpanel with each one connecting to three motors. I can't see why I cannot because neutral I believe is just a return, but I'm not a electrician.

2. Since I'm running the 16-1234 motors which only have two (2) terminal connections, how and where do you connect a ground?

Boy, I hope this bench works!

Thanks.

Dom

[Thomas Vaught]

I would install a neutral strip inside the bench and then run all of the neutral wires (with extra wire soldered to the motor wire as required)
to that bar. I would run a heavy gage wire from the neutral bar inside the bench to the neutral bar in the breaker panel.

As far as the grounds go, I agree the motors do not have a ground lug or screw but you might be able to strip a length of solid or flexible wire so that you could wrap a wire around the metal frame a couple of times, twist the wires so that the wires are tight to the frame, and then solder that connection. At least you would have a good ground connection to the frame. The 1234 motors don't make things easy for you on the wiring.

Tom V.

[Dom G]

Tom, thanks for your input but I don't understand what "(with extra wire soldered to the motor wire as required)" means?

Also, I looked at the 16-1234 motors again tonight and I'm not sure where I could wrap or solder a ground wire to?

Do I really need to run a ground to each motor?

If any of the other people who are using the same motors could comment on if and how they grounded their 16-1234 motors it would be helpful and appreciated.

Thanks.

Dom

[2seater]

[Thomas Vaught]

Dom,

The motor wires are fairly short. I was referring to adding extra length of wires to the pigtails to be able to get to an internal neutral bus bar.

The motor has a laminated metal field frame. I was referring to wrapping the ground wire around the laminated frame. I realize the "housing platform" is made of plastic. Still a
motor ground is safer than no ground.

Food for thought.

Tom V.

[Dom G]

Tom, thanks for clearing things up. I was confused because my 16-1234 motors didn't come with pigtails just two male spade ends on the motor to hook up your hot and neutral wires to.

I am going to take your advice and use a internal neutral bus bar which will greatly simplify things.

I'll have to work on the ground issue which will be a much bigger challenge.

Dom

[Thomas Vaught]

I went down and looked at a sample motor I had and noticed that I had previously added the pigtails vs them coming that way. Sorry for the confusion.

Tom V.