[Coco] Powering a computer room/ham shack?

[Mike Pepe]

You can feed a small sub-panel with that 20A line just fine, and split it off into pretty much as many circuits as you want. Obviously you cannot draw more than 20A off either of the hot legs from the source panel without tripping the source breaker.

A 20A 2-pole breaker should feed your subpanel, remember to get the permits beforehand (and ask to make sure your local codes allow what you want to do) and do not bond the neutral to ground in your subpanel (that's a big no-no)

You can run lots of CoCos off that 20A 2-pole breaker :)

-Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-
> bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of John E. Malmberg
> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 5:28 PM
> To: coco at maltedmedia.com
> Subject: [Coco] Powering a computer room/ham shack?
> 
> I am trying to set up a workshop where I may be able to play with my
> COCOs and other toys again, so this is not totally off topic.
> 
> Unfortunately the builder of my house, while putting in the plumbing
> for
> downstairs bathroom, only put one spare power cable, a 12 AWG with 3
> insulted wires and a ground.  That would be good for 2 20 A split
> neutral circuits.
> 
> This is in addition to the required single 20 A circuit in the basement
> that is currently active.  Combined that gives me a total of 60 A in
> the
>   basement.
> 
> The resulting 60 Amps is more than sufficient for powering the expected
> TVs, Ham Radios, and computers, and workbench tools.
> 
> I would prefer though to have a sub-panel with multiple circuits, where
> each circuit would just be 15 A, for the computers and the Ham Radios
> and TVs.
> 
> I have not been able to find a strong reference as to if this would
> pass
>    a housing inspection.
> 
> All the references on the Internet I have seen is using 30A dual
> breakers and 10 AWG feeders to a sub panel.  Putting in the 10 AWG
> feeder would be difficult as there is no good path from the main panel
> in the garage to the basement.  I would likely have to run visible
> conduit on the outside of the dry-wall.  As such, I would probably have
> to get a professional to install that.
> 
> The NEC does seem to have tables indicating that a 20 A feed is
> allowed,
> as long as 20 A ganged breakers are used to protect it.
> 
> The last time I had electrician's training was in 1975, and I just read
> the NEC code and a lot of stuff has changed.
> 
> I figured that there would be people here with more practical
> experience
> in this.
> 
> Regards,
> -John
> wb8tyw at qsl.net
> Personal Opinion Only
> 
> 
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