Oh yeah,
You should not do this, but about 30 years ago I got involved with towing a bunch of mobile homes.
All of them needed tires and stuff inflated so I made a three prong 220 adapter plug and a four prong 220 adapter plug.
Also put a regular household plug on my 2hp 220 air compressor.
I did this so I could use either the 220 dryer or oven outlets in the trailers for power but be able to use my long heavy duty extension cords
so we could move the compressor 100 ft in each direction rather than needing a bunch of air hose.



I know, there are some electricians out there who are saying tisk tisk, no ground wire only a neutral but it was necessary at the time.
They call them suicide plugs for a reason.
(um, I am still using them 30 years later)
When in use I would tape the connections along with a warning note to keep anybody who couldn't follow directions very well from plugging a 110 tool into it.

 

Back in the old days (50's-60's) my dad worked in construction on new tract homes and I used to go to work with him, all of the carpenters trying to feed their skill saws and big Comet radial arm saws off from the same temp power pole would hardly have enough voltage to power your tools, one of the tricks we would use is to link about 6-8 100 foot 10-gauge construction power cords end to end and power it from the 220 volt tap, there was enough voltage drop in the 600-800 feet of cord to power your skill saw and give it a kick, we later commandeered a 60-80 pound Jefferies Buck and Boost transformer and wired up out own line conditioner.

Nothing wrong with adapters or pig tails as long as they are done correctly,

The only time I will go crazy is when I find someone who back feeds his house through the dryer receptacle with his portable generator, suicide for anyone working downline.

 

My experience with electricity can be covered in the following phrase an electrician taught me years ago:

"one wire hook up, 2 wire screw up, 3 wire blow up and 4 wire go back to the house"

Gary

 

Good phrase.

Some years back our power company actually got criminal charges (reckless endangerment I think)
filed against some guy who was responsible for shocking one of their linemen.
It was the second time he had done it.

 

Electronics run on smoke. Once you let the smoke out it's done, you need to replace it.

 

I always heard that electric motors had smoke packed in them at the factory and that electronic parts had a little flash packed in them.....

Same theory applied....lol

Gary

 

I let an electrical engineer change direction on a 690V 3Ph motor. He wired L1 to L3 when we started the motor, we let smoke and flash out of the motor started along with made it spew plastic and copper. L2 was fine on the starter.

 

this is not true my compressor is wired with 4 and it is only single phase 220 volts 2 hots 1 ground and 1 neutral if your not sure how to wire it call a electrican