# Please help_how to wire three phase motor starter with GE CR306CXD120 + solid relay



## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

That is probably part of the assignment.



https://download.schneider-electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Catalog&p_File_Name=0140CT9201.pdf&p_Doc_Ref=0140CT9201



This is another brand but they are very similar.

Or you can attempt to look up a “combination starter” for GE/ABB because that’s what you are building.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

paulengr said:


> That is probably part of the assignment.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind help, 🙏：）


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## SteveBayshore (Apr 7, 2013)

What is the line voltage? What is the coil voltage? Where are you getting the coil voltage from? The picture isn't of a combination starter.


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## Easy (Oct 18, 2017)

Your instructor should be guiding you on this project. I can see that it's a 120 volt coil and you want to incorporate a Stop Start station. If the line voltage is 120 / 208 you will not require a control transformer. If it's 480 then you will need a transformer. I would look at the wiring diagram that came with the starter and then I would take the picture of the starter that you posted and print a couple of copies of that and then take a red ball point pen and draw out where the wires should go. Then give it a go. Hopefully with a low amperage fuse on the control circuit so you experiment and not damage anything.


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## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

A few things.
First stop what you are doing and learn to do it the right way. If this is an instructor lead project find a different class if he is letting you use the wires connected.
If you are trying to learn the labs on your own buy the correct wire for both safety, troubleshooting and good habits.

This book attached will help you get started.

Cowboy


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

SteveBayshore said:


> What is the line voltage? What is the coil voltage? Where are you getting the coil voltage from? The picture isn't of a combination starter.


The line volt is a 3-phase power input after the disconnect to power a 230/460 motor, I am not sure about the coil volt(OL), it may need a separated V input. I checked the GE CR series manual, the black-white pic from the manual, shows a combination starter, thank you very much for your help


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

Easy said:


> Your instructor should be guiding you on this project. I can see that it's a 120 volt coil and you want to incorporate a Stop Start station. If the line voltage is 120 / 208 you will not require a control transformer. If it's 480 then you will need a transformer. I would look at the wiring diagram that came with the starter and then I would take the picture of the starter that you posted and print a couple of copies of that and then take a red ball point pen and draw out where the wires should go. Then give it a go. Hopefully with a low amperage fuse on the control circuit so you experiment and not damage anything.


The starter used to power the three phase motor 230/460, power input is from the disconnect with fuse protection.

The diagram includes: three phase power disconnect--starter--motor + Start and Stop Button.

I am not sure about how to wire the starter, would you please draw a diagram and mark the NC, NO, A1, A2? 

Thank you so much for offering the help, hope you all the best


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

just the cowboy said:


> A few things.
> First stop what you are doing and learn to do it the right way. If this is an instructor lead project find a different class if he is letting you use the wires connected.
> If you are trying to learn the labs on your own buy the correct wire for both safety, troubleshooting and good habits.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for the posting, I am trying to learn more about starters by myself at home, I found similar connection in field which I am really interested in.

Thank you so much for helping me!


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

We all learn somehow, but a hope and a poke is not a good method to learn 3 phase. 480v bites with no remorse. I would step away from the hardware and do some research so you understand what your trying to do, and preferably get guidance from your teacher. Given your questions it seems you must be a fairly new study to electrical, which surprises me that your class is messing with 3 phase. What your trying to do is pretty straight forward but if you mess up the potential for a rather large fireball is real.


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

If you want to learn some stuff on your own, get a 24vdc power supply an ice cube relay with a 24v coil and a light bulb or something and a couple buttons or switches. Figure out how to wire this up, it's essentially the exact same thing as what your trying to do with this starter, except only one wire instead 3 phase and it will be a lot harder to blow yourself up.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

Thank you very much for your reply!

I am trying to learn more about starters at home by myself. I searched the GE R306 series manual online and some 3 wire control diagram, but I am not sure the wiring method.

Please help me draw the line on pic showing the wiring, thank you so much!


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

mburtis said:


> If you want to learn some stuff on your own, get a 24vdc power supply an ice cube relay with a 24v coil and a light bulb or something and a couple buttons or switches. Figure out how to wire this up, it's essentially the exact same thing as what your trying to do with this starter, except only one wire instead 3 phase and it will be a lot harder to blow yourself up.


 Thank you so much for your kind help and posting


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

mburtis said:


> If you want to learn some stuff on your own, get a 24vdc power supply an ice cube relay with a 24v coil and a light bulb or something and a couple buttons or switches. Figure out how to wire this up, it's essentially the exact same thing as what your trying to do with this starter, except only one wire instead 3 phase and it will be a lot harder to blow yourself up.


Thank you very much for your reply!

I am trying to learn more about starters at home by myself. I searched the GE R306 series manual online and some 3 wire control diagram, but I am not sure the wiring method.

Please help me draw the line on pic showing the wiring, thank you so much!


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

Freshman said:


> Please help me draw the line on pic showing the wiring, thank you so much!


I doubt any one is going to do the assignment for you. Also there are hundreds of three phase motor starter circuits on Google. Now if you attempt to draw a circuit and post a picture of it you might get some feedback.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

just the cowboy said:


> A few things.
> First stop what you are doing and learn to do it the right way. If this is an instructor lead project find a different class if he is letting you use the wires connected.
> If you are trying to learn the labs on your own buy the correct wire for both safety, troubleshooting and good habits.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much for your concern and help, I really appreciated  I am learning by myself and thanks again for your safety reminding, I will follow the safety requirements.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

mburtis said:


> I doubt any one is going to do the assignment for you. Also there are hundreds of three phase motor starter circuits on Google. Now if you attempt to draw a circuit and post a picture of it you might get some feedback.


Thank you very much for you suggestion, it looks like this


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

Are you just a spammer or do you really not know what an electrical schematic is? If you literally google search "three phase motor starter electrical schematic" the first site that comes up has several examples of wiring diagrams.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

mburtis said:


> Are you just a spammer or do you really not know what an electrical schematic is? If you literally google search "three phase motor starter electrical schematic" the first site that comes up has several examples of wiring diagrams.


Thanks for your reply!

From plaugner' posting materials, I found the similar diagram like this,









I am trying to figure out the specific wiring point on CR306 and solid relay, thanks.


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

The physical starter itself should have the terminals labeled


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## 210860 (Apr 12, 2021)

Freshman... If you would have payed more attention to the "menu items listed, you would have seen there's a "electrical diagram thread" in the denoted items listing..

Have safe day... good luck..


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

mburtis said:


> The physical starter itself should have the terminals labeled


Thank you I will find out.


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

Dell3c said:


> Freshman... If you would have payed more attention to the "menu items listed, you would have seen there's a "electrical diagram thread" in the denoted items listing..
> 
> Have safe day... good luck..


Thank you very much for your posting


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## Redy Kilowatt (Jul 23, 2021)

This is not a simple start stop. This circuit has a phase monitor.


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

Waste of time learning how to wire something until you understand what the parts do and how they work.

If you do not understand how the starter aux works then start/stop will never make sense. If you do not understand the concept of a relay then a starter will never make sense.


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## wiz1997 (Mar 30, 2021)

Redy Kilowatt said:


> This is not a simple start stop. This circuit has a phase monitor.


Where do you see a phase monitor?
A phase monitor will monitor the voltage on all three phases.
What his picture shows is a contactor with an electronic overload device which monitors the current on all three phases.


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## Easy (Oct 18, 2017)

Some of us never had formal training or just don't pick up on stuff as well as others. Really the instructor should be doing a better job with his student.
Safety comes first but hands on experience is the best teacher for some. 
I have worked with Journeymen that have been in the trade for many years and have never wired a motor starter. Strange but true.
The coil voltage is 120 and it looks like the instructor is using GFCI protection for the control circuit. Hopefully a low amperage fuse as well.
It might have been better to use a 24v coil but I don't see any safety issues as long as everything is de-energized and the student is being monitored.
No one ever showed me how to wire a stop start station or a holding circuit so I just played around at home on my own time learning how. 
I would look at the wiring diagram and then I would draw it out as a physicals image so I could actually learn how. 
I would keep my drawings available so perhaps 5 years latter when I actually had to work on a control circuit I would be able to do it. 











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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

I would suggest that you learn to draw it and understand it, way before you get the wire strippers out.

It easier if you can acquire some used components to disassemble, examine how they work, what the terminal functions are.

Then get your scratch pad out and make a stab at putting it on paper first. Before you pick up the tools.

Learning to read and make a drawing is way more important than connecting the dots with conductor's.

Troubleshooting an existing system is harder than making a new one. And it's an extremely in demand skill.


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## CMP (Oct 30, 2019)

Here is an example of a combination starter built years ago for a air compressor out of used parts. It is very similar to what your asking for, but different enough to force you to do some of your own thinking and work. We are here to share knowledge to people in the trades, not to provide free prints and engineering for others work.

So if your serious about learning, share some of your own pictures and work and prove it to us. Sketch out a drawing of what you think it should be like and post it, then we can go onward from there.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

CMP said:


> I would suggest that you learn to draw it and understand it, way before you get the wire strippers out.
> 
> It easier if you can acquire some used components to disassemble, examine how they work, what the terminal functions are.
> 
> ...


Troubleshooting isn’t that hard. You start with what you believe it’s supposed to do. Then you observe what it is doing. If the two aren’t the same one of them is wrong. So you make more observations to determine why. Obviously knowing how things work is the key here not just following a print.

In most cases I hardly use prints for troubleshooting mostly because they’re usually wrong (outdated or full of mistakes) and I’ve got enough experience I can draw out what it should do either on paper or in my head very quickly. There are many ways to do something but only a few that actually work correctly. A lot of incorrect stuff that is out there was wired up by people who know how to use wire strippers, bend conduit, follow a print, and can quote Codes they’ve memorized but have no Earthly idea what they are doing or why. You always get these crazy arguments with them about what they think is the correct way to do something because somehow it’s Code but often read incorrectly or can’t seem to find the Code they are claiming exists,


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## wiz1997 (Mar 30, 2021)

Easy said:


> Some of us never had formal training or just don't pick up on stuff as well as others. Really the instructor should be doing a better job with his student.
> Safety comes first but hands on experience is the best teacher for some.
> I have worked with Journeymen that have been in the trade for many years and have never wired a motor starter. Strange but true.
> The coil voltage is 120 and it looks like the instructor is using GFCI protection for the control circuit. Hopefully a low amperage fuse as well.
> ...


Where is the GFCI you are referencing?
Some of you are doing a very good job of adding devices that don't show in the picture the OP posted.
Which is probably causing more confusion.


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

wiz1997 said:


> Where is the GFCI you are referencing?
> Some of you are doing a very good job of adding devices that don't show in the picture the OP posted.
> Which is probably causing more confusion.



It in the OP first post. 
same as the OP asks for a print with a solid state relay but doesn't says what type so a answer with a solid state phase monitoring relay is a valid answer.


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

paulengr said:


> Troubleshooting isn’t that hard. You start with what you believe it’s supposed to do.


Ask a operator then waste 30 minutes figuring out its impossible that it has ever worked that way.


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## Easy (Oct 18, 2017)

wiz1997 said:


> Where is the GFCI you are referencing?
> Some of you are doing a very good job of adding devices that don't show in the picture the OP posted.
> Which is probably causing more confusion.


Sorry for confusing stuff. It's in his original post and in thread 17.


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## wiz1997 (Mar 30, 2021)

Easy said:


> Sorry for confusing stuff. It's in his original post and in thread 17.


OK, I see a GFCI receptacle in the post, however would you connect the control voltage to a GFCI receptacle with a plug?

If this is a student's assignment, and being that I was an electrical teacher for 10 years, perhaps I might just throw in a "gotcha" in the mix, then explain why it may not be such a great idea to plug the control voltage into a receptacle of any kind that is easily unplugged.

"OH, I need to plug in my fan and my drill motor. Here is a plug, but I need both of them.
I'll just unplug this one for a few minutes."

Yes he does mot state what type of solid state relay he is to use, but since we are looking at the picture in his post....
it's a solid state overload relay.


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## Easy (Oct 18, 2017)

I really don't think the OP was asking how to troubleshoot a circuit. He was asking how to hook up a starter. 
Yes you do need to know how and why something operates to even start to diagnose the problem. Hopefully his teacher is covering that.
Diagrams and schematics are useful in most cases and so are operations manuals, especially on complex systems. This is not the case as it's just a motor starter.
Some of us learn in reverse. Tactile first and then theory of operation. I have a terrible memory and not much critical thinking skills but if I do something a few times it sinks in.
It's not like we are all into learning about the building blocks of a atom. 


wiz1997 said:


> OK, I see a GFCI receptacle in the post, however would you connect the control voltage to a GFCI receptacle with a plug?
> 
> If this is a student's assignment, and being that I was an electrical teacher for 10 years, perhaps I might just throw in a "gotcha" in the mix, then explain why it may not be such a great idea to plug the control voltage into a receptacle of any kind that is easily unplugged.
> 
> ...


Perhaps the instructor wanted to keep things safe for the students. I really don't know. He would have been better of using a 24v coil.


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## gpop (May 14, 2018)

wiz1997 said:


> OK, I see a GFCI receptacle in the post, however would you connect the control voltage to a GFCI receptacle with a plug?
> 
> If this is a student's assignment, and being that I was an electrical teacher for 10 years, perhaps I might just throw in a "gotcha" in the mix, then explain why it may not be such a great idea to plug the control voltage into a receptacle of any kind that is easily unplugged.
> 
> ...



I wouldn't connect it with a plug but i would use the load terminals on the back if i required a gfci to protect the control circuit.


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## wiz1997 (Mar 30, 2021)

gpop said:


> I wouldn't connect it with a plug but i would use the load terminals on the back if i required a gfci to protect the control circuit.


I have never seen a GFCI used on a control circuit.
IMO GFCI receptacles are just too fickle to be used for motor control circuits.
Many of our control stations are in washdown areas, but we use 24VDC as our control voltage.
I suppose if we used 120VAC control voltage a GFCI could be used to protect personnel, but the GFCI would need to be placed somewhere inaccessible, such as inside a panel.

Even if you were to use the load terminals, off the back of the GFCI, you run the risk of someone plugging something in that may trip the GFCI, shutting down whatever piece of equipment the starter is controlling.
The accidental shutdown of a piece of equipment on a production line could result in serious downtime and perhaps damage to machinery.
My job has always been to keep the production lines going, and not create a potential problem, that would shut them down for something as simple as someone plugging a defective device into a receptacle.
All this is just my opinion.


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## radio208 (Aug 27, 2014)

The best way I learned motor controls is the 'ladder' diagram-not the wiring diagram. It so much easier to see the flow-from left (L1) to the right (L2).thru all the contacts, coils pilot lights, etc...


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## Easy (Oct 18, 2017)

I don't think the GFCI in this scenario was used because it's good design but rather to protect the students.


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## MikeWhitfield (Aug 1, 2011)

mburtis said:


> If you want to learn some stuff on your own, get a 24vdc power supply an ice cube relay with a 24v coil and a light bulb or something and a couple buttons or switches. Figure out how to wire this up, it's essentially the exact same thing as what your trying to do with this starter, except only one wire instead 3 phase and it will be a lot harder to blow yourself up.


Oh, not blowing yourself up is _tight_. 

Freshman, seems like you're trying to jump straight to learning what you specifically want to know without learning the things you need to understand first. That's a good way to get yourself hurt with electricity. Also, please understand that not every motor starter circuit will be the same, so "learning" by having someone identify the wiring on one motor starter may well get you in trouble on another with different controls, purpose, voltage, etc. Also, "solid relay" is not exactly a rigorous term, and precise terminology is one of the biggest ways to make sure that what you think you are asking is exactly what the answering person thinks you are asking. 

Once you understand all the terms and components and know why they are connected the way they are connected to achieve a particular desired effect, it's easy to wire any particular motor starter because the terminals are labeled. Start by reviewing the book that Just The Cowboy graciously provided to make sure that you fully understand all the basics of electricity, then move on to experimenting with low voltage as MBurtis suggests. A good, U.L.- or E.T.L.-listed Class 2 low voltage power supply is designed to be inherently safe for shock and fire; electricity is never completely safe but that's as good as it gets. I'd also suggest buying a couple good basic self-teaching electricity text books or DIY books from a used book store, because if you're completely self taught there will always be larger gaps in your knowledge than if you're taught from a rigorous, well though-out program. To roughly quote Rumsfeld and paraphrase Sun Tzu, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. That is, there are things that you know and things that you understand you don't know, but there will also be things that you don't know but don't yet understand that you don't know, because you don't yet know that you need to ask the questions. If you teach yourself with very limited outside guidance, then you ARE going to get bitten by something you should have known, but didn't even understand that you needed to know. You know? 😁


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## oldwirepuller (Dec 12, 2015)

Freshman said:


> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I am learning how to wire the three phase motor starter GE CR306CXD120 + solid relay, plus Start and Stop button. I am not sure about the specific parts of the starter, any one can help me to draw a wiring diagram, and mark the A1, A2, NC, NO? Thank you very much for your kind help!
> 
> ...


Looks like single phase to me. Maybe you have a different picture/.


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## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

Looks like a troll thread, joined - posted - did not listen - gone::


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## Freshman (Jul 30, 2021)

Dear All,

Thank you so much for all your replies! I appreciate all your kind help!

I am very thankful for the safety reminds, I will do it step by step, thanks again!

Hope you all are doing well in this special time

Best regards,

Freshman


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