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nrbr

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Seems to be a great interest in electric here and always lots of feedback so figured this would be a great place to ask. I have an existing 200a panel at home and am putting together a plan to build a shop behind the house here in norco ca. Shop will be about 100' away from house. I'm assuming I'll need a 200a panel for said shop. Will have a mill, lathe, large compressor possibly a phase converter ect. 40x 25 building with lighting ect as well. 2 questions with first being is 200a to much for what I'm doing? Second is will I need new wires pulled in from meter to panel to create a 400a deal? Sce is being a bit difficult to get ahold of about this . Waited about 35min to get somebody and had to leave a message.
 

Xring01

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Honestly, pending the load of your house, will dictate alot of the answers.

Get a Electrician on the phone, or get them to come out and give you an estimate for what you need. That will clear up what your need or dont need.
 

lbhsbz

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Seems to be a great interest in electric here and always lots of feedback so figured this would be a great place to ask. I have an existing 200a panel at home and am putting together a plan to build a shop behind the house here in norco ca. Shop will be about 100' away from house. I'm assuming I'll need a 200a panel for said shop. Will have a mill, lathe, large compressor possibly a phase converter ect. 40x 25 building with lighting ect as well. 2 questions with first being is 200a to much for what I'm doing? Second is will I need new wires pulled in from meter to panel to create a 400a deal? Sce is being a bit difficult to get ahold of about this . Waited about 35min to get somebody and had to leave a message.

I have 100A main panel on the house. I have a fullsize manual mill (1.5hp Tree 2UVR) and a 14x40 lathe with a 2hp motor. Both are 3 phase and running on VFDs. They don't use much power at all. The biggest load I have is a 5HP 80 gallon compressor. I also have several welders, the highest load of which is a lincoln 180A mig. I have a 50A breaker from the main panel feeding my garage sub. I have a 40A 220V breaker feeding the 220V circuit in the garage...which is hardwired to the fused disconnects for both the mill and the lathe, and I have 3 plugs, once of which is used for the compressor, but can also be used for the welder. All my lighting is LED, which doesn't draw much at all. I have 3 or 4 20A 120V circuits feeding various outlets everywhere.

My logic is that if the compressor is running, I'm not usually running anything else other than lights. The exception is my plasma cutter, but my workaround there is to fill the compressor tank then shut it off, run the plasma on stored air until the tank gets down to 100psi or so, then take a break a let the compressor refill. I've not had any issues at all with this setup in 12 years. Since I'm just one person, I can't really run more than one machine or electric tool at a time, so I'm never overloading anything. If I had 5 people in the shop, it would be a completely different story.

I would figure out what is typically running in the house and how much power you're using...For me, it's a fridge, maybe a few LED lights, and the TV when the wife is home. In the summer, the A/C. Various chargers for electronics and that's really it. Not much at all aside from the A/C, which draws 18A or so IIRC after startup.
 

Sleek-Jet

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If you walked into my office and laid that plan out, I'd tell you build a separate service to the shop with its own meter.
 

mjc

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If you walked into my office and laid that plan out, I'd tell you build a separate service to the shop with its own meter.

this or as I did a 400Amp panel on the garage with one of the 200 amp breakers feeding the house. house is now a subpanel off the new panel. I have 2 buss bars in the panel where the meter used to be, but when I was in CA buying some of my supplies for the project they would not sell me the jumpers said they are not allowed in CA.
 

monkeyswrench

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What is needed, and what is available are the two questions. @lbhsbz kind of points this out. If the shop is a hobby shop, how often will you be running a part on the mill, lifting a car on the the lift, sand blasting while welding? I'm small time, so my needs are limited as far as power needed at any one time.
But....
It's always better to have more than you need. A cheap CNC may come up. They run when you can be doing other things. I only have 200amp available to me. Being in the sticks, and well away from the nearest transformer deal, more amps aren't readily accesible. For your application, look at all the options. Balance your costs and needs, and look into what costs would be if you need to upgrade later.
 

Nordie

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If you walked into my office and laid that plan out, I'd tell you build a separate service to the shop with its own meter.

This is what I was thinking meter a and meter b, but I was unsure if that was okay in California.
 

nrbr

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I have 100A main panel on the house. I have a fullsize manual mill (1.5hp Tree 2UVR) and a 14x40 lathe with a 2hp motor. Both are 3 phase and running on VFDs. They don't use much power at all. The biggest load I have is a 5HP 80 gallon compressor. I also have several welders, the highest load of which is a lincoln 180A mig. I have a 50A breaker from the main panel feeding my garage sub. I have a 40A 220V breaker feeding the 220V circuit in the garage...which is hardwired to the fused disconnects for both the mill and the lathe, and I have 3 plugs, once of which is used for the compressor, but can also be used for the welder. All my lighting is LED, which doesn't draw much at all. I have 3 or 4 20A 120V circuits feeding various outlets everywhere.

My logic is that if the compressor is running, I'm not usually running anything else other than lights. The exception is my plasma cutter, but my workaround there is to fill the compressor tank then shut it off, run the plasma on stored air until the tank gets down to 100psi or so, then take a break a let the compressor refill. I've not had any issues at all with this setup in 12 years. Since I'm just one person, I can't really run more than one machine or electric tool at a time, so I'm never overloading anything. If I had 5 people in the shop, it would be a completely different story.

I would figure out what is typically running in the house and how much power you're using...For me, it's a fridge, maybe a few LED lights, and the TV when the wife is home. In the summer, the A/C. Various chargers for electronics and that's really it. Not much at all aside from the A/C, which draws 18A or so IIRC after startup.
Damn can I just rent space in your shop?! Yeah I'll be a one or 2 man deal with no plasma cutter. Nice to hear the mill and lathe arent drawing like crazy!
 

nrbr

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If you walked into my office and laid that plan out, I'd tell you build a separate service to the shop with its own meter.
Is there a savings involved with this method? All underground here
 

hallett21

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Location?


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hallett21

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Like was posted earlier you need to do a load calculation on what the house is using.

Electric or gas dryer?

How’s the home heated?

Own a Tesla?

Running 1 or 6 HVAC units.

Pool? Jacuzzi?

Then we need to know what your shop equipment is pulling. And how much of it you are running at once.

Are you working alone or will 3 guys be running skill saws, welding and running air tools all at once?






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lbhsbz

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Damn can I just rent space in your shop?! Yeah I'll be a one or 2 man deal with no plasma cutter. Nice to hear the mill and lathe arent drawing like crazy!

no

rule of thumb is 7.5/hp at 120V....which translates to 3.75A/hp at 220/230V...whatever you wanna call it. 3 phase cuts that down more. My lathe at full tilt might draw 6A. I know this because the VFDs are connected with 16ga stranded wire and they don't even get warm.

The compressor is single (2) phase 220V, so that's the largest load.
 

mjc

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no

rule of thumb is 7.5/hp at 120V....which translates to 3.75A/hp at 220/230V...whatever you wanna call it. 3 phase cuts that down more. My lathe at full tilt might draw 6A. I know this because the VFDs are connected with 16ga stranded wire and they don't even get warm.

The compressor is single (2) phase 220V, so that's the largest load.

Maybe put the compressor in the main garage and plumb to the back garage.
 

lbhsbz

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Maybe put the compressor in the main garage and plumb to the back garage.

I don’t understand...what’s that got to do with electrical?
 

lbhsbz

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What new garage??? Lol...it’s all old
 

Shlbyntro

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Will you be installing gender neutral wall outlets rather than traditional female ones? HUGE difference....
 

Sleek-Jet

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Is there a savings involved with this method? All underground here

From a utility standpoint it is easier, at least in my experience. I'd just tell you to trench and install conduit up to the pole and then I would have my crew pull the wire in. Easier then trying to pull old wire out, new wire in and what not.

Don't know how your utility would handle the request though.
 

Brobee

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It’s hard to determine if you’ll need a larger service wire without knowing what you have now. Load in your house and now the shop as well as distance from the transformer will play a role in how large you need.
If the house was built in the 60s-80s, you might have a service called sid, which is secondary in duct. This was a thin plastic sheath that had the secondary wires already in it and it was just rolled out into the trench and stuffed up the sweep into your panel. The duct is usually too small to upgrade to a larger service and requires a new trench line and conduit to the transformer or secondary box. My utility will not upgrade any service in Sid. If your service wire is sufficient and you’re not pulling a huge amount of load, I’d run a service to a 150a sub panel in your shop. As stated above, your not going to be running every machine at the same time. Basically the answer to your question is it depends.


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