220v 3 wire commercial freezer help

[albo5150]

I have a Commercial Freezer that requires 220v. The cable that comes out of the freezer has 3 wires: white, black, and green. From hours of searching the internet, i'm assuming that black and white wires are used for 110v, and green would be ground.
I don't have a actual 220v wall plug, so i found a 4 wire cable in the ceiling.
I connected the black from cord with black on wall, white from cord with red on wall and at first i connected greed from cord to white on wall to my green from the freezer cord and turned on, but that was not good, got shocked a couple of times
Then i connected the green from cord to the bare wire from the 4 wire on the wall but now the freezer is not working.
What am i doing wrong?
Please any help would be appreciated.

[HayZee518]

I'm assuming you bought this freezer from a surplus sale so chances are it is wired ok. the cord is your supply with the black and white as the supply. 220 volt single phase so connect it up to a 20 amp two pole breaker. better yet check the motor nameplate to see how many amps it requires. you didn't mention the size of the cord. the size is printed on or stamped into the cord jacket.

[albo5150]

Yes, purchased it from an auction. working condition so the wiring with the fridge should be correct and it's 20 amps. The error is on my side i guess, i have no clue what I'm doing wrong.

[HayZee518]

wire it to a double pole 20 amp breaker. white to one breaker screw the black to the other. the green goes either to the neutral bar or an auxillary ground bar if you have one in your panelbox. you mention a three wire with ground. have you measured the voltage on the black and red? what did you read?

[mrcaptainbob]

Freezer...

Would not the wiring for the freezer be correctly color coded? I'm suspect of anything black/white/green as being 120. If it were black/red/green or black/_ _ _ /green then I'd suspect 240. Verify the tag on the motor.

[HayZee518]

Bob in actuality you are correct but in most cases for a 240 application, single phase a three wire cord is used which contains a white, black and green. the white wire should have been taped with a black tape or black shrink tubing.
My hot water heater is wired with 12/2 romex with ground on a 240 breaker. the white is taped black.

[mrcaptainbob]

Freezer electric...

Hi, HayZee. Yes, that's how my water heater is wired also. And it was taped with black tape at the circuit breaker and water heater to denote the white being hot. The reason for my questioning is the color coding coming as manufactured. I was under the impression that white always meant neutral, green was always ground, black and red were always hot and blue, yellow and others were for variations of 'hot'...not true?

[HayZee518]

yes and I've seen three phase motors wired with 12/4 cord - white, red, black, and green for a ground. the cord is not the compressor wiring code which may be completely different than what you see coming out of the junction box or motor "pecker-head" the compressor leads could both be black!

[albo5150]

The freezer has 2 cords coming out from the back, one is 120v for the lighting fixtures, and one for 220v for the motor/compressor (confirmed with factory). The 220v is single phase cord. I decided to run a new circuit breaker from box for it, because the place is pretty old and it looks like electric work was done every time the place got a new ownership and i don't want to waste time with figuring out their connections. Now the question is, when i run the new circuit i just run it with 2 hots from the box and make the black and white from cord hots, and connect the green with ground (bare on the box). I wouldn't a neutral in this case, is this correct. I just need some reassurance
And I want to thank everyone for replying to this post.

[HayZee518]

the circuit will work with the black to black, the white too the other compressor lead and the green to ground

[albo5150]

Freezer is up and running, and didn't get shocked yet . Thanx for replies everyone.

[HayZee518]

I'm glad it's running. If you ever go into the site Garden Web in electrical you'll see a bunch of would be electricians trying to help the unknownst with their problem. I quite frankly don't trust them. Stick with home repair forum and you'll get info that's up to date and quickly! thank you for using the home repair forum.