220 Volt Ciruits

This is a common conversion with crews that need power to light for commercial photography. A converter can be made with the large 220 three prong plug on one end, and a box with several 110 volt outlets on the other. There used to be a book published by GE that contained the "how to" on this. I have a Hubbell 220 twist lock at the two amp positions on my own system. I sold my Tube Research amps that used this circuit, but like you, have my eye on that 220 plug as a possible future outlet in 110.

Nhorton: What I did for my system is to take 2 110 volt lines from the dryer breaker in the breaker box and run wires to two Hospital grade hubbells in my listening area. Added a separate couple of grounding rods and the results have been very pleasing. One wall plate for front end the second one for my amp. I think it's a worth to do modification. Regards

.....whoa!!! Won't 220 volts, straight out of the main breaker box damage stereo equipment designed to run on 110-120 volts???? Craig.

you can set ps audio's pp600 to accept 220 and deliver 110. the only challenge, as i see it, is the $1900 admission fee.

You can take the 220vac feed thru an center tapped isolation transformer giving you two 110vac feeds. Check with a qualified electrician before you attempt anything!

I think some of you may be confused. 220 from a appliance outlet (clothes dryer plug), is actually two 110 volt runs, as is the feed to your main breaker box. If you split the 220 into two runs (this is NOT a transformer, but a wiring thing), you risk no damage to your equipment. There are a few pieces of US stereo gear that are designed to run on 110 and 220, this usually requires circuitry changes by the manufacturer. In any event, if the piece you wish to power from the appliance plug is NOT 220, the conversion box I mentioned, (the first posting on this thread), will provide at least two dedicated 110V plugs. Since the breaker for "dryers" is usually large, a duplex of 110V outlets per side of the 110V run would not be a strain on this electrical drop. If you cannot find the data sheet I mentioned (printed by General Electric), then call or hire an electrician to build the box that converts this safely. Really, it is not a big deal to wire it, I have done this myself, but It has been so long, I am afraid I might give incorrect wiring advise on the procedures to safely do this.

Thanks Albert, it seems that I was one of the "confused" ones. When I recently had a dedicated AC system installed, the electricians started at a 220 volt 50 amp breaker at the main breaker box and ran a 220 volt mainline to a secondary breaker box where the 220 volt was stepped down to 110 volt. Then 4 110 volt 20 amp lines were run from there to 4 duplex outlets. In short, it's my understanding that the 220 volt AC had to be stepped down to 110 volt before it could be used by stereo "stuff". But before the electricians came, I hooked up a cheap duplex outlet to the 220volt/50amp breaker using 50 feet of mainline cable (to test Redkiwi's directionality observations) and plugged in a 100 watt light bulb (just as a test). Well, the light bulb glowed about 100 times normal then went POOF-- I was lucky I didn't burn the house down or electrocute myself-- or both. AFTER the electricians installed the secondary breaker box, I did test the directionality of wire thing-- and yes it is "directional", but that's another story:). Thanks, Craig.

go to this link. Digital Theater Forum I asked the same question and BruceK there explain in detail about how to DIY this conversion. you'll get a balance 220V! 110V- and 110V+. and a ground no neutral. no hum problem! I have all of my component modified to use 220V. good luck

Albert is right about the signal. 220 volt is not really 220. The positive is 110 and the negative is 110, thus the overall voltage is 220 since they are out of sync. Youu can just split the line to get two 110 lines. I was posting because I wanted to know if people had had success doing this, particularly using some sort of pre-made device.