Control/Dimming Dimmer Soca with one non-dim circuit

[RonHebbard]

With custom break-ins and break-outs, it will work, until someone mixes up custom break-ins and break-outs with standard.

Realize / appreciate the "custom" in the breakouts is the fact of using correctly chosen (and installed) connectors of specific NEMA (or equivalent) configurations designed for their purposes and not intermateable with any of the normal break ins and break outs. If they're physically incompatable with other connectors they can not be mixed up with others. I understand what you're saying @BillConnerFASTC and I realize things are only "idiot proof" until the world develops the next generation of "idiots" but the poster could have his custom break ins and outs fabricated from yellow jacketed "approved cables" rather than depending on less obvious labels for distinction.
Granted, I understand what you're saying. Not much stops motorists from sticking the gas station's pump hose into their vehicle's exhaust pipe rather than its fuel inlet but at some point we have to accept the fact that some "idiots" are beyond saving. [Some of them, like myself for example, insist on posting in / on CB]
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

With several mults in close proximity and not able to see one end from the other, it doesn't take much idiocy to have that 120 device connected to 208.

Just run a cable for 208 and be done with it.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Ryan - I hope you return and find these responses helpful, and share with others, but I see you were last at CB minutes after posting here, 5 days ago.

 

[STEVETERRY]

The way I read the derate is that figuring 100% of six 20 amp circuits would be 120 amps. 50% would be 60 amps. BUT look at the whole capacity of the cable.
So, any given circuit could have 20 amps on it, but the total of all six circuits should not exceed 60 amps. So yes, you could have six 10 amp loads, or three 20 amp loads with the other 3 not in use, or 20+5+10+15+5+5 etc.
I would also agree that mixing voltages on a single soca is a BAD thing.

Almost!

Per Tables 520.44(C)(3) and 520.44(C)(3)(a):

1. 90 degree C-12AWG conductor ampacity for up to three current-carrying conductors = 35A
2. Ampacity adjustment factor for 12 current-carrying conductors = 70%. 35A x 0.7 = 24.5A
3. 24.5A x 6 circuits = 147A
4. 147A x 50% diversity = 73.5A total simultaneously energized load across 6 circuits
5. 73.5A / 6 = 12.25A maximum simultaneously energized load per circuit

Important note: this table prohibits overcurrent protective devices over 20A with 12AWG. Therefore, the 35A rating can only be used as a starting point for ampacity adjustment factor, where 50% diversity also applies. That means you cannot use a single circuit 90 degree C 12/3 AWG cable to carry 35A.

For those people that are saying "Really? I didn't know that!"--take heart. In the 2017 NEC we made some editorial changes to this table to emphasize the 50% diversity requirement. In previous editions, it was deeply buried in a note to the table, and almost universally missed by readers.

And this informational note was also added in 2017:

Informational Note: For the purposes of Table 520.44(C)(3)(a),
load diversity is the percentage of the total current of all simultaneously
energized circuits fed by the cable to the sum of the
ampacity ratings of all circuits in that cable.

Note that in the informational note, "ampacity ratings" means "ratings after ampacity adjustment". This has been confusing to some readers, and I imagine we will further clarify it in 2020.

ST

 

[STEVETERRY]

With custom break-ins and break-outs, it will work, until someone mixes up custom break-ins and break-outs with standard.

You mean like when someone plugs a Socapex trunk cable into a 208V moving light distro and then plugs a "standard" 120V breakout into the other end?

ST

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

You mean like when someone plugs a Socapex trunk cable into a 208V moving light distro and then plugs a "standard" 120V breakout into the other end?

ST

Pretty good quartz photometrics for a (very) little while though. Maybe it doesn't matter in an LED world with power supplies that all adjust.