I'm installing a NEMA 6-50 outlet in a garage for future potential car charging. The wire is a #6 3-wire, red, black, and white.
I'm not used to this size wire, and it's very stiff and hard to fit into the box. The box is a metal 4×4 inch box, but it still seems difficult to get the wire in the box once it's screwed into the outlet. The wire extends maybe 3 or 4 inches into the box.
So my questions are:
Is my box big enough, or do I just need to cut the wires shorter? Ideally I'd want a longer box to more easily accommodate these thick wires. I'm guessing the box is large enough, since I can't seem to find anything bigger. I'm more used to cutting the wires long enough that I can make them extend out the box a bit, and then push them out, but 6 gauge is so stiff, this is difficult. I've not wanted to cut the wires too short for obvious reasons.
Can I pigtail the ground wire with a smaller wire, and connect that smaller wire to the outlet, or does the ground wire have to be 6 gauge? This was one idea I had to make getting these wires to more easily fit the outlet, but I don't know if it's legal/safe.
Best Answer
You can't use that cable for a new outlet. It needs to go to the scrapper.
You'll need to re-run it with proper wire or cable, such as 6/2 w/ ground.
Given your complaints about the stiffness of #6 wire, I'd suggest running some sort of conduit, such as "smurf tube", and run individual THHN wires in the conduit. That would do a couple of things for you. First, you'd be able to use #8 stranded wire for 50A, since THHN is allowed a higher operating temperature. Second, you could defer the "neutral" question and simply add the neutral wire later if needed.