There was no dedicated ground slot on the receptacle outlet and dryer cords had no ground wire or ground prong. The white wire supplies neutral to the dryer receptacle.

How To Wire 240 Volt Outlets And Plugs
Dryer receptacle wiring diagram. 4 prong dryer receptacle wiring diagram wiring diagram is a simplified pleasing pictorial representation of an electrical circuit. It shows the components of the circuit as simplified shapes and the capability and signal friends amongst the devices. As mentioned earlier the neutral and ground are. This is a standard 15 amp 120 volt wall receptacle outlet wiring diagram. This article will explain what options you have to get your dryer wired and running. Electrical wiring for a dryer power cord has a typical 240 volt electric power cord with 3 wire and 4 wire wiring configurationsmany people may experience the situation of trying to make a older dryer work with an new four wire receptacle.
Two hot wires and the third contained both ground and a neutral wire. The black wire line a phase and the red wire line b phase supply the 240 volts. This system worked pretty well and is still in use in many homes today but there is more potential for electrical. But if you notice both the neutral and the ground wires both connect to the same ground bar inside the panel box. Wiring a grounded duplex receptacle outlet. This is a polarized device.
A grounded contact at the bottom center is crescent shaped. Before 1996 electric dryers were supplied by a dedicated circuit that had three conductors. The ground is now a dedicated wire also. The long slot on the left is the neutral contact and the short slot is the hot contact. As you can see there is now an added dedicated neutral. The ground connection is shown in this diagram.
The 4 prong dryer outlet wiring diagram above is ran with a 103 with ground cable. In the to the right a 3 wire 10 awg nm cable supplies 240 volts from the electrical panel to the dryer receptacle outlet box. Dont use this receptacle when no ground wire is available.