Its a PCS20 and the plug has a L5-30P marking on it... which is weird because the manual says it should be a 20A plug.
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Power Strip Decisions
- Thread starter TanksNStuff
- Start date
You will need a L5-30R to plug that in. The PCS20-30L? That strip is a 30A max. So a couple of choices here....you could feed it with a 20 or 15 amp breaker or 30 if you really need it. Wire sizes are as someone else posted earlier. Deal is though, you could keep the existing wiring and breaker if you are not loading up on the PDU at more than 15 amps or 12 amps continuous and would just have to change out the receptacle. You need to know what your house voltage is and you can figure out how many watts max you could load. So say you house voltage is 120V....you would take 120(volts)x12(amps)=1440VA (or watts). I use the continuous amps due to the fact that your loads will not really be intermittent on the circuit (i.e. pumps run 24/7 and lights run more than 1 hour at a time etc.). To avoid breaker nuisance trips you only supposed to load a breaker to 80% it's capacity.
Is the plug molded onto the cord or are there screws on the strain relief? According to the book the unit is rated, and fused for 20A. If the plug has screws, maybe someone replaced the 20A plug(L5-20P) with the L5-30P so it could be used on a 30A circuit(L5-30R). If so, you could replace the 30amp L5-30P with a 20amp L5-20P, and assuming you have a 20A service in your dining room replace the the standard 5-20R duplex with a single L5-20R, and be good to go.
If the existing receptacle pin arrangement looks like this, you shouldn't wire a 20 amp device to it:
If the pin arrangement looks like this, then you should be able to kill the power to it, and replace it with the L5-20R:
If the existing receptacle pin arrangement looks like this, you shouldn't wire a 20 amp device to it:
If the pin arrangement looks like this, then you should be able to kill the power to it, and replace it with the L5-20R:
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If you can change tge plug I would not even bother with using a locking plug and cord set. L stands for locking and unless you are that worried about it being unplugged don't spend the extra money.
Since I assume your issue is that your tank isn't really all that close to your router, you should check out one of those devices that transmits your internet signal via your existing electrical wiring. It's basically a little device you plug into an outlet next to your router with a ethernet cable running from your router to the outlet and 2nd device plugged in near your tank with another ethernet cable running out from that to your power strip unit.
Here's a random example I picked out on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-85Mbps-Powerline-Network-Adapter/dp/B001AZUTCS
That's pretty interesting. Thanks for the info and link. I decided I'm not going to use the long power strip because I don't want to bother with switching out electrical outlets, etc. However, that might come in handy if I want to convert my Reef Angel controller from WiFi to wired ethernet.
They're pretty cool devices. It's def a lot easier to plug a couple of these into your outlets than it is to run cables through the walls. Especially with the way a lot of new accessories are all coming out with wifi capabilities, be it for our reefs, entertainment systems, thermostats and even kitchen appliances! Everything is going to be connected to the internet soon and these things are a super easy way to hardwire a device to your home network.