Breaker Box/Load Center Question

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navycop

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I was going to install a breaker box in my shop. I notice they have 200amps, 125amps, etc. How do I know how many circuits to put in. I mean I know it says 40 breakers/40 circuits. But does that mean for a 200 amp I can only put in 40 5amp breakers or 20 10amp breakers?
 
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I don't know, I don't know, not an electrician and definitely wouldn't give out electrical advice, especially for the main panel box. I can however tell you that the box you put in the box can only be a certain percentage of what you have in the house. So for example if the box in your house is 150 amps, then the box in the shop, assuming your shop power comes from the house and not from the street, then the shop could not have more than 100 amps...something like that, I don't know the actual percentage numbers. I would get a professional to come in and get the panel hooked up and grounded to code. Then if you want to run a few circuits out of the box for some lights or outlets, that's a much simpler job.
 
If you add up all the the breakers in your main panel, they will exceed the rating of the main panel. The idea is that you will not run every circuit at once. The same principle applies to the sub panel in your shop.

For a shop, consider all the stuff that can possibly be on at once, say dust collector, lathe, lights, compressor, a powered hand tool and maybe an electric heater. You will find that's way under the rating of the sub panel.

Add 50% to that at least and run 220V from your main breaker with at least that rating on the wiring, with a two pole breaker to match that wire. So you may have a 50A breaker in your main panel which can shut down the sub panel in the shop. The fact that your shop panel is rated higher is irrelevant.

Your lights should be on their own breaker, that way if one of your tools trips its breaker, you are not in the dark while the tool spins down. Ideally each major tool will be on its own breaker, but in reality you might not achieve that. For example, my band saw and drill press share a breaker.

You should endeavor to load balance the two legs, so your 110V lathe might be on one leg of the 220V input while the 110V dust collector might be on another.
 
Eric has the right idea. I would add that 50 amps in 220v = 100 amps in 110v because each leg gets 50 amps and you would have 2 legs. Now if you have a 220 plug, subtract that from the main before you start with your legs. But the upshot is, you can have more than the big breaker in your box, just don't run everything at once.
 
electric

40/200 means thats the max amount of breakers allowed in that pannel
im a master electrician in pa if you need help drop me a line
 
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