Running 120v through a 240v cable?

Hello! So I’ve been struggling to get this light going. Kind LED X2V2. They finally sent me a cord but it’s 240v. It’s got a different plug with two flat, horizontal blades. I got a little adapter to go on the end that will allow me to plug into standard 120 outlet but it still won’t turn on. Do I need a voltage transformer or should 120 flow through a 240 cord? Thanks.

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You have a European plug. You’ll need a 120v plug if an adapter won’t work.

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240 wires different, it uses 2 positives whereas 120 is a positive and a ground. Easiest way is to simply replace the male end with a 120 male end, then the wiring will be corrected. Most LEDs run on either, I run my Szhlux lights on 240 as they only pull half the amps, so it’s cheaper . I wire all my own stuff, but if you aren’t 100% sure, hire someone to simply install a 240 plug in and you’ll save on power.

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Lucky you. My utility charges by the watt, rather than amp, so my cost would be the same. :wink:

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The 220V cable will have 2 hot and 1 ground. The 2 “hots” oscillate at 180 degrees from each other. This allows one to be a return path and one a feed path, which then oscillates 60 times per second.

The 120V wire, it uses 1 hot and one neutral, then one ground.

Both hots and neutral go to the power grid, the ground is at the electrical box level, which is then tied in at the main panel to the neutral.

Opening the cord ( cutting off the 220V end) should give you 3 wires. Make sure you find the proper ground. Black is usually hot, white is usually neutral and green or bare is usually ground. Who knows what color the wires are in that cable though.

Some drivers are polarity specific, but I wouldn’t imagine those to be. If so, you need to make sure the hot and neutral are proper. If it doesn’t work, swap those two. If it still doesn’t work, check the continuity of the cord while disconnected to ensure it’s not the cord with a multi-meter. After that, it’s probably just a damaged driver. possible the reason for the missing cable was it was a return or something.

you don’t save on costs between 110V and 220V in terms of electric, it just allows larger loads on the same gauge of wire because the current is split between two wires, instead of one.

220V 5 amps is the same as 110V 10 amps in terms of electricity usage/cost, it’s just less " pressure" on the wire. Both would be 1,100 watts an hour. For example, an electric heater that is 10KW is roughly 33 amps at 220V. This would require 8 gauge wire for 220V. For 110V it would require roughly 67 amps, or 4 gauge wire.

For a 20 foot run of 8 gauge wire (220V) you are looking at $60 in wire. For 20 foot of 4 gauge (110V) you are looking at roughly $160 in wire.

Good luck and be safe!

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My lights give amperage pulled at bit voltages, it’s half the amps at 220 as 120, how can that not be cheaper?

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Amps is " the rate the electric goes through the cable". Kind of like water going through a water hose. The more pressure on the hose, the more amps through the wire. The greater the distance, the greater the resistance.

It’s kind of like comparing water pressure to gallons of water.

Watts is a unit of measurement for power.

No matter the voltage, the wattage will stay the same. Only the amperage changes, which is the flow of electric, not the measure of total consumed power.

1000 watts at 110V or 220V is still 1000 Watts, which is how they measure electrical usage over the course of an hour. a 10KW heater will use 10,000 watts in one hour, no matter the voltage.

The higher the voltage, the thinner the wire can be for the same wattage.

On our electric bill at least, it’s shown in Kilowatts. 1KW=1,000 Watts.

So your light could say 220V 5 amps, 110V 10 amps. It’s the same thing on your electric bill. It still pulls 1,200 watts from your electric grid, it just has 2 wires to get to the light instead of one wire, cutting the required amperage in half.

Watts = Amps x Volts

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A device like this:

Converts 110V to 220V, or 220V to 110V. It does so with a transformer, the same type of thing on the power poles that transform the power coming into our homes.

So if you have a 110V outlet and plug in a 220V device that is rated at 5 amps 220V, that would pull 10 amps from the wall into the device at 110V, but only provide 220V at 5 amps.

The same in reverse, if you hooked it into a 220V outlet and had it output 110V, a 110V 10Amp device would only pull 220V at 5 amps from the wall.

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Makes more sense when voltage is in the equation.

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If your lights pull fewer watts from a 220V circuit than they do from a 110V (or 120V, for that matter) circuit, you’re right that 220V is cheaper for you. But that means their power supplies are less efficient at the lower voltages. I don’t know why that would be, but I doubt it generalizes to other lights.

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Every light I’ve had gave ratings for both voltages. Both the ones I bought in 24 have it. Don’t really matter as long as they grow great weed!

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The stickers on mine (LEDs) say 120-240V, 2.3A max, and 200W. 200W at 2.3A implies 87V, so they should be robust against most brownouts. :thinking:

Anyway, my stickers imply a constant, maximum 200W power draw from 120-240V. Yours imply something else. Could differences in lighting technology explain the differences in the stickers?

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An old Vipar Spectra par1200 I have is that way, they even told me that power draw was same even if you had it dimmed because the drivers pulled the power, the dimmer just determines how much goes to diodes. Looks to me like if same power was pulled but not used, there would be heat buildup. But it says 120 thru 277 volts input.

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When I turn my driver’s down I watch the wattage drop at the wall.
That’s hlg drivers,wonder what yours ran :person_shrugging:t2::thinking::green_heart::metal:t2:

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No clue, I need to get a measuring device.

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Kill-a-watt :green_heart::metal:t2:

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I doubt whoever told you that nonsense was an engineer. To behave that way, the power supply would have to be designed to be stupidly inefficient on purpose.

I seem to recall that the Soviet central planners mandated power supplies like that during Stalin’s time to boost employment at power plants. :wink: :laughing:

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