Hey guys, Im in the process of moving to a new place. The wall where I want to mount TV doesnt have any power socket, but there is indoor A/C unit just next to it. Can I just connect a power strip cable to A/C unit terminals and use it as a socket for my LCD TV? Is there any risk Im not aware of?
I live in EU and have 220V AC mains. AC is ~1kW indoor unit and also ~1kW outdoor unit. TV is just regular 43" LCD.
I have a general knowledge about electricity (high school), but have no experience with A/C units.
Cheers
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Call an electrician, before you kill yourself or someone else.
Im embarassed a litle because I am some kind of electrician hehe. Joke aside, I have no real experience, so thanks for warning. I still want to hear other opinions to avoid shitty electricians. Learning is always good
The most important consideration is that your home may have earth leakage protection for the outlets, but not for the hardwired AC. It likely depends on when it was built, for example in Australia the regulation to provide RCD, residual current device, protection on AC was introduced relatively recently.
This protection is a must for any pluggable device. The LCD TV may be double insulated, but you would be tempting fate with such a useful outlet…
EDIT: I mean, fuck, personally I would 10000% re-use the AC cable for a 4 gang outlet. It’s a no brainer. But this is terrible advice to provide right? If you insist on doing it, buy an RCBO protected power strip. Little more expensive but much safer if you are unsure about upstream protection. And press the test button!!
EDIT: To clarify, personally (and minimally) I would take a 10A RCBO protected power board and cut it’s plug off halfway down the lead, disconnect the AC wire entirely and join into the power board cable with a rated junction box. Then I would take the cut off lug and half lead and terminate into the AC, and plug it into the power board. This has the benefit of guaranteeing (press the test button!!!) some sort of earth leakage protection (via the RCD component in the RCBO), and current protection (via the OL component of the RCBO) for infrastructure (I saw some concern about a 70W TV burning your wires lol, but yeah if you plug a heater or hair dryer in, this will save you from that… and although the upstream protection really should I am assuming nothing!).
EDIT: Please don’t die. If you insist on doing this, turn off EVERY switch or remove EVERY fuse (be careful with fuses) you find in your board, and lock it. Then try the AC to confirm it is isolated. Then turn the switches back on and confirm the AC works. Then lock it out again and confirm isolated. If you have a multi meter, test it on a known live outlet first (multimeters can fail!) then on the AC terminals (rinse, repeat) Then proceed!
EDIT: I missed that 10A is still 2.2kW sorry, if you do the work then determine the cross sectional area of the wire and see if they can even handle 10A, the downstream overload protection might be useless.
Thanks for writing this and dont worry Im not gonna die <3 I trust myself that much to be safe and not die. I have multimeter and I was doing some simple wiring in school and at home. If I cant disconnect mains, Im not touching it, period. Im also thinking I should pay electritian for this work, but still want to know whats going on.
It was built this year, so everything is new, but still doesnt mean it was built by following any regulations. You know, I live in one of crappy countries on balkan…
I think my mains cable 3x2.5 mm2 goes from 16A switch (behind 40A RCD) to outdoor unit. Then 5 lead wire is going from outdoor to indoor unit. 3 of 5 cables are mains and ground afaik N+L+GND. If I go that route I should add one more (probably 10A as you said, but have to be checked) RCBO next to my indoor unit and connect mains from outdoor unit to RCBO, then connect AC and TV after RCBO? Sounds good, but it might require some creativity to fit everything inside or next to indoor unit.
Btw, my AC looks like its grounded. There are some pics (AC = klima at F9):
Edit: I said what I think how its connected by reading how it is usually connected, I never checked wiring myself. I just took pics few minutes a go. I need bit more research
Or, just…call a sparky.
I would not put the AC on a power strip, unless you get a very good power strip.
You should switch the power point to a double gang outlet and stick a power strip on the other plug for your tv and accessories.
You TV may not like inductive loads on the same circuit though so youay lower the life of your tv by doing it.
Thank you for input. I wasnt going to put AC on a power strip, I was going to connect powerstrip on AC terminals and then only TV on a power strip. Well, my plans are changing it seems :)
Also Im not worried about lowering life of TV, but it sounds wrong and I want to avoid everything thats not best practice
Assuming this is a VRF/DX split system you can often hang a small Outside Air Fan off the indoor unit power supply with no problems but anything over an Amp or so you are starting to risk overloading the PCBs in the Condensor unit as they dont have the same current carrying capacity as the cables typically used.
Also not sure about the regulations where you live but you also need to comsider if the GPO for the TV would still be RCD/TCBo protected.
Overall its a bad idea to be putting any non-HVAC related equipment on a circuit designated for an AC unit, this will be confusing and dangerous in regards to power isolation for an electrician doing work in future.
Thank you. 1A is not what I need, but it feels bad after reading this. 1A is only ~220W which seems like dangerously low
Not an electrician, this is not professional advice.
Are you talking about the wire terminal of the aircon? No don’t do it. While they could have the same voltage, it’s the current that’s the issue. Typically AC pulls high current, which increases wattage/heat and thus normally has its own line and stronger cabling.
While it would technically work, if the AC were to pull too much current with your tv, it could melt/burn your cables in the house (and start a fire) or trip your house fuse.
Thx. Yeah i think its called terminal of the aircorn (I just googled that word, wasnt familiar). Its just regular screw terminal where you connect outdoor and indoor unit (located inside of indoor unit).
Is that really an issue since TV doesnt drain more than 70W? I was more worried about EMF or some other crap caused by motors.
Alternative is to drill a wall and connecting cable to a wall socket in bedroom… it sucks if thats the only way
I do not know EU electric standards. I am not an electrician.
Air conditioners are often put on their own circuit with a dedicated outlet for a reason (a few I think). Power draw, inducted noise, and having a dedicated circuit breaker.
Thx, it make sense. Even tho my AC is hard wired, no socket
For now I connected TV to a wall plug in next room. Cable is guided trough the hole in a wall. Judging how lazy I am, Im not touching it for 5 years at least. Better solition might come up in thr meantime 😜
Thank you all for help, seems like it wasnt the best idea, but probably possible. I figured my AC is also making wird noise so thats another reason not to touch wiring until they fix it. Cheers
High draw appliances like an AC should not go on a power strip (unless it is some heavy duty power strip designed for that load). I’m not really understanding what you mean by “1kW indoor and 1kW outdoor unit”. So there are TWO AC units? If together they draw 2000W and your power is 220V, then they are drawing 9 amps of power. I don’t know about in Europe, but outlets in the US are typically wired for 20 amps (but you should be using only 80% of that continually, so a 20A outlet is actually only 16A).
TVs usually don’t draw a lot of power these days, but you can check the back of the unit to verify what it draws in power. I am guessing that it draws less than an amp which should technically make it perfectly fine in terms of power draw, but I still wouldn’t wire it together with an AC unit which are known to introduce noise into the lines.
I dont know if you are using some other type of AC, but we have outdoor unit connected to indoor unit with pipes and cable. Indoor unit cools room air = heats cooling liquid that circles between units and then outdoor unit (on my balcony) cools that liquid using outside air. It looks like this.
If I enable turbo mode I think both units drain max power, but numbers are wrong I just realized. It says 1060W while cooling and 1010W while heating. Im sorry I missread that, my bad, I guess they use 1kW in total.
Its not using socket, but its connected behind 16A switch in electronic box. TV and AC shouldnt use more than 5A if my math is right.
Thank you for input!
That just looks like the mini-split. It is one unit with 2 parts that work together. One is the condenser and compressor, and the other part is the evaporator and blower. Most ACs like that would be hardwired and not run on a typical plug. I think most people read your initial post and thought you meant a window AC unit which plugs into a standard outlet.
Oh damn, thank you. I wasnt thinking about that tbh. I guess the answers would not be much different.
In Croatia, you can barely find window AC units and if you do its usually because they didnt have enough room for split unit or its just not allowed to mount outdoor unit on the facade
