Help w/oven wiring!

[Deecoat]

Hi All, Been a while since I posted anything,but I do visit quite often. Could anyone tell me where I can find an oven wiring diagram that shows how to wire a fabricated oven that has 4 elements w/ fan and lights. I am also looking to find in the diagram the color of the wires and where they connect. I am some what knowlegable when it comes to house wiring but not real sure about wiring an oven w/ T-stats and contactors. Thanks again for your advice. Dee

[m67bd70x]

I had the same problem so dont feel bad. At first, I wired the elements in series. They worked but did not get hot enough to get the oven up to temp.

Next, I ran the elements in parallel and that did the trick. Now, each element gets full 240 volts.

Basically, I built the exact same oven as Jim. Except 2 feet bigger an no internal fan. You can see his oven here: http://www.stivermotorsports.com/id44.htm

For the element and thermostat wiring I used 10 gage wire. You can go to your local home depot / home center for this. Make sure to get 10 - 3 wire.
This means 3 wires with ground.....should say on the package. It will contain a red , black , white and bare copper wires.

I simply stripped off the outer jacket to expose each wire individually. Besides it was easier to run each wire seperately through the conduit.

Anyway, pending on you schematic of your thermostat will determine your wiring. For my thermostat, 2 hot wires come in at 120 volts each (1 black 1 red).

Next, two wires come out. I used black and white so not to get confused when connecting to the elements. The black goes to one side of each element and the white goes to the other sides. This is a parallel circuit which basically means if one element goes bad, the other will still work. You will be getting full 240 volts at each element.

Hope this helps! My oven gets up to temp in 10 minutes with only 2 3000 watt elements.

[Deecoat]

Thanks for the reply! I will be purchasing a T-stat this weekend. Did you run the 240V directly to the thermostat? I'm going to use 4 elements so I need to figure it out. Thanks again for your reply. Dee

[gourdhedd]

Check out my oven page: www.powdercoatoven.4t.com
It has a wiring diagram. No fan, but everything else. The thermostat controls a contactor, which in turn controls the elements.

Email me if you have any questions.

Gary