Hello everyone,
I recently purchased a Grupo 1000 h-10 energy and need help hooking it up. The plug is a NEMA 6-20P with 3 prongs, but has 4 wires feeding into it, 3 black and one green. I have a regular US 5-15 outlet. The machine is 110/220v and it has a sticker that says phase 1 phase 2 neutral 3. I purchased a 6-20 to 5-15 adapter and connected it but the receptacle fuse keeps jumping. Is there any advice what I can do?

I recommend consulting with an electrician to provide you with an appropriate two-phase outlet (two different 110 V supplies, each on their own phase, one neutral, and one ground) to connect up your espresso machine.

I don't believe that you'll be able to run the machine from a 15 Amp standard US outlet.

I'm with Chris. Call an electrician. This isn't the sort of thing you want to guess about.

As my insurance agent once reminded me, if you modify your home wiring or plumbing beyond appliance installation, have it inspected. If you don't and there's a loss that can be traced back to your handiwork, the insurance company could deny the claim. If a licensed electrician/plumber does the work, then the insurance company will pursue them (or more accurately, will pursue their business' insurance company).

Mb2000 wrote:I purchased a 6-20 to 5-15 adapter and connected it but the receptacle fuse keeps jumping.

I'm not an electrician, but I know that if you plug a 220V @ 20A appliance into a 120V @ 20A circuit (*), the breaker is supposed to trip. If it didn't, the wiring would heat up, potentially igniting a fire. Never defeat the safety measures.

As an interesting aside, my electrician told me that in his hometown, the building code included citations for the associated loss that prompted a given requirement. That impressed upon him that these rules were truly necessary and could save lives/property.

(*) EDITED to clarify: Watts = Voltage * Amps

The round pin is ground and the 2 flat pins are power. I that's a 120V 20 amp outlet, it won't work with a machine that requires 220V.

The good news - the receptacle in your wall there is actually for a 20A circuit, not 15A. That's why there is a cross appearance to one of the prongs.

The bad news - if your machine is looking for "phase 1, phase2, and neutral" it is expecting 220V power.

As the others said, consult an electrician. You are looking at running new wires and installing new outlets and breakers to make this happen. It won't be cheap but if you're serious about it it can be done.

Absolutely, get some electrical expertise here, looking closely at the appliance, then getting the correct plug and receptacle to support it.


If the machine internally has 4 wires (phase, phase, neutral, ground) your electrical expert will need to decipher that. Some North American appliances do require 4 wires to support split phase 240V (phase1 - phase2) components as well as 120V (phase-neutral) components. But that would be unusual on an espresso machine. Espresso machines that run on a standard 240V NEMA 6-20 split phase supply have two phase wires and a ground (no neutral). Your machine is apparently kludged so that the 4 wires are somehow reduced to three at the plug, perhaps with the neutral unconnected, or possibly with neutral joined to the earthing pin.

I would call an electrician as well as a plumber. A water pipe directly over an outlet like that!?

Since many commercial machines can be wired for single or 3 phase, it's likely it is either wired 3 phase or was 3 phase and then converted to single leaving an unused black wire.

You would have to use the proper plug and the proper receptacle.

Your photos are showing a 250V plug and a 120V receptacle. You would have to choose one, then adapt the other to match.
Replacing the receptacle would probably be more difficult than replacing the plug, so if you don't have a reason to keep the machine at 220V, your best bet would be to replace the plug.
With the assumption that the machine is currently wired for 220V (because the plug is an indication), you will want to re-wire the element connections for 120V.

If this isn't something you have done before, for 110V both phase wires will go to the Phase side of the new plug, smaller prong. The neutral conductor to the neutral prong, wider and sideways compared to a conventional 15A plug. Obviously, if the conductors are not labelled, you'll have to follow them and determine which is which. If this isn't easy, have an electrician do it. If you're not sure what you're doing, have an electrician do it.

Simply plugging in a machine that's wired for 240 into a 120V outlet probably won't damage the machine, but there's no good reason to do so. The opposite, plugging your machine wired for 110 into 240V, is a good way to burn the crap out of everything.

Please make sure to use the correct plug on the machine's power-cord. Mis-matched conductors will still conduct electricity and can kill an electrician who assumes the neutral side really is neutral.

Once the machine is safely wired to whichever voltage you're going to go with, test it again on the GFCI. If it still pops the GFCI breaker start checking all components for conductivity to boiler-ground. (Start with the element connections, it'll almost certainly be a blown element).