Originally Posted by exranger06
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Originally Posted by exranger06
Originally Posted by Wolf359
Well an 80 amp breaker is going to need 3 gauge wire.
Wrong. Motor circuits are wired differently. You're allowed to use a breaker that would normally be way too high for the wire size. I have #10 wire for my 60 gallon compressor and it's on a 40 amp breaker. I could go up to a 70A breaker if I wanted to and keep the #10 wire. Read article 430 of the NEC. For a motor circuit, the breaker is only there to protect against a dead-short to ground. The motor has it's own built-in thermal overload breaker to protect against overloads due to motor malfunction. And you're allowed to use a high-amperage breaker so the high start-up current doesn't cause a nuisance trip.
OP, in order to tell you which size wire and breaker you need, we need to know the HP rating of the motor. It is literally impossible to tell you which materials you need without that spec. Like I said, for motor circuits, you need to follow Article 430 of the NEC. All of the wire sizes and breaker sizes are based off of the HP rating of the motor; all other specs are basically irrelevant.
I believe he said he was also going to use that outlet for other things too.
The compressor needs its own dedicated circuit. You can't put receptacles or "other things" on that circuit. He'll have to either run an additional circuit(s) for the other stuff, or install a subpanel in that area and run a single feed to it. The circuit from the subpanel to the compressor will still follow Article 430.
Yeah, that was a little strange. But I think technically you could plug in other things that may run closer to 80 amps. I had a friend with wood working equipment in his basement that he would move around so OP didn't mention what other stuff he might want to plug in.
I was thinking you could just get away with a 50 amp breaker if it just calls for 40. According to the manual it's just 40 amps. And 7.5 horsepower converts to about 23 amps at 240 so that 40 amps might be the peak and not 80.