Electrical – Need to add cord to 11.5KW 240V fryer

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We operate a non-profit booth at a fair. A coworker bought a couple of new fryers for us, yeah! They shipped without cords, boo.
I unscrewed the back of the fryer and the mounting block has 3 connections, with the outer 2 used on the equipment side of the block, the cord side is of course, bare. The ground is a copper single square terminal (currently empty) bolted to the sheet metal (my conductor would plug into it, NOT connected directly to the mounting block, nor is it the same screw that the fryers grounding wires go to. They are attached to the sheet metal nearby with a screw.

I bought a 3 wire cord from Lowes, it is rated 240V 50A, 6/2-8/1.

The cord has ring connectors that fit over screws, but as I said the mounting block seems to only take insertion of wires.

Questions:

  1. The cord says 6/2-8/1, is that for 2(#6) wires and 1(#8) wire for neutral?
  2. The block looks like it takes a single conductor wire, is that correct?
  3. Would it be correct to strip off the spade crip connectors on the cord, strip it back .75 – 1 inch and insert the braid or conductors?

Lastly, if I can't use the current cord, where do I buy a solid conductor cord or one that would be correct?

I apologize if this is confusing, I am trying to add enough info for someone to make good suggestions from.

Thank you!

Best Answer

Boo? There's a reason it doesn't have a cord. First, most such machines are hardwired.

Second, look closely at the power: 11,500 watts @ 240V (this is a 240V single-phase machine, right?) is 47.916666 (repeating of course) amps. That's a peculiar number. Remember that continuous loads must be provisioned for 125% of their rated power. 47.916666 amps x 125% = 59.9 amps. That's even more peculiar. It's perfectly sized to be provisioned for a 60A circuit, and that is why that size was chosen!

Normal plugs and sockets stop at 50A. 60A plugs and sockets are not common, and not standard. If they had given you a cord and plug, Murphy would have a surprise for you on setup day.

The plug in your hands is the obsolete, dangerous NEMA 10-50. Aside from being too few amps, it's NEMA 10 -- hot-hot-neutral. Neutral is not ground. You don't need neutral and you do need ground. You could use a NEMA 14 (hot-hot-neutral-ground) or a NEMA 6 (hot-hot-ground) if you can find those in 60A. But this begs another question.

When the faire provisions power to your booth, what receptacle do they provide? Because you need the plug that fits their socket, at the risk of stating the obvious. So your next step is actually to have a conversation with them about that.

If the faire is providing you 240V 3-phase, and you have more than one of these fryers, then things just got a lot more complicated.

Answers:

  1. The cord is way wrong. So moot.
  2. Lugs generally take one wire, a wire being a distinct thing from a cable. Lugs are perfectly able to take stranded wire. In fact, solid wire is rare in #6.
  3. Don't carve it up, because you'll be returning it to Lowes for credit.
  4. You don't buy a solid conductor cord, since there's no such thing - it has to be flexible after all. Once you figure out which connector the job actually requires, you will surely not find it in a pre-molded cord, but many shops will be happy to build it for you out of a component plug and proper legal cordage, which is cable specifically made to be power cord. You can do that yourself with the right cordage. A proper electrical supply house can sell you that don't go to Lowes or any big-box; they are incompetent and it's too specialty for them, they will cheerfully sell you a super-wrong thing like #6 SEU-AL.
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