I have been asked this one many times over the years, usually by someone who owns a nice home tanning bed, and wants to start letting customers from a business they own use the tanning bed for a fee. This is not something you want to do unless you REALLY understand how electricity works, as electricity can kill you. TanningBeds4less.com (sponsor to the right) sells a conversion kit that works on all 230V/3wire/20A tanning beds for about $250, and this includes a T-Max timer. This isn’t much more than the cost of the parts themselves.

The reason it takes so many parts is that the home tanning bed must be externally switched, so it needs a relay, plus the timer port, and the timer, and the hour meter. Its a bit of a job to build yourself. If you decide you MUST build it yourself, I will help you with a parts list, but you are on your own to figure out the wiring diagram (its isn’t that hard for a true technician). Here is what you need for a standard 24 lamp, 240V home bed, like a SunQuest Wolff or similar:

1. 2 pole, 20A or better relay/contactor with a 240V coil.
2. Fuse holder and 10A fuse.
3. NEMA 6-20R receptical
4. NEMA 6-20P plug
5. About 10 ft. of double insulated 12 gauge, 3 wire, cable. (use this with the plug to make the cord)
6. A 2 wire port for connecting to the remote timer. AMP makes these, electrical suppliers sell them.
7. 20 foot or so (depending on what you need) of SOJ grade, 18 gauge cable for the remote timer
8. Remote timer. T-Max is the easiest, they sell for $100 at the site above (the kit has one with it)
9. Hour meter.
10. Electrical enclosure big enough to house everything.

As you can see, this is a lot of stuff, which is why I just recommended the kit to begin with. Since you will need a remote timer anyway, you are just paying $150 for the switching parts and meter, which is close to your cost.

If you already have a nice 24 lamp home system and you just need to use it part time for business, $250 is a pretty good deal. It will let you keep control of the sessions, keep you legal in all 50 states, and get you up and running without any internal parts or rebuilding. Either way you go, it is much less expensive than buying a new tanning bed if all you need is a part time bed for a beauty salon or other business. If you are opening a full time tanning salon, however, you might want to look into more robust systems than the average home tanning bed.