230V 6-20 Wiring question

[Matthew Curtis]

How is the wiring different for a 230V, 6-20 outlet different? Do you wire two hot lines coming from a double breaker, and then the ground to the plug. -vs- with a 115v you only have one hot with a neutral and a ground?? If that is the case how do you prevent plugging in a 115v motor to a 230v outlet??

Thanks

[Anthony Whitesell]

Any tool with a 115V plug on it is setup for either a 5-15 (std 15A outlet) or 5-20 15A/20A outlet. The 6-20 outlets are different. The prongs are oriented different. The only mistake I could conceive of, is that you installed a 6-20 plug on a 115V tool.

[Jim N Burke]

Mathew,
The 6-20 is as you think, 2 hots, one from each side of the double breaker, and a ground. There is no neutral. But make sure that you use a double breaker that is for 220, meaning that it gets both poles from the panel. Don't use one that uses the two half-sized breakers that give you two 110 volt circuits in a single-breaker slot.
Jim

[Dan Friedrichs]

Here's a website that has a chart showing the different plug configurations:
http://www.nooutage.com/nema_configurations.htm

As you can see, the 5-20's and 6-20's have one of the pins oriented differently so you can't mate them.