Experienced Electrician! Here to Answer Any and All Growroom Electrical Questions

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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
greenpassion said:
so do you think 5 x 1000 watt hps for flower is too much my friend she runs 4000 she said no prob .
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I don't think it is too much, I am just saying I don't know what level of power usage will cause your power company to question what is going on.

Realistically, I could say that power companies don't expect high power usage between 8pm and 6am. However, 5000W isn't that high, and I don't think you will have any problems.
 
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greenpassion

Member
geezz what a bunch of bullshit it is i keep going back and forth on how many cause of the damn power companies i think my power bill is only about 50 $ a month i get billed every two months
 
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greenpassion

Member
yeah i already had a 3000 watt setup at another house im planning on using a ebb and grow 48 pot hydro system instead of soil though this time
 
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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
I helped a friend set up a 10000 watt (10 1000w) system. We did it over 6 months to lull suspicions. Suddenly jumping to 10000 watts is very suspicious, but gradually getting up that high over x number of months isn't as bad. We also had another 100A service box installed under the auspices of using it for pool and hot tub heating. I believe he eventually added some solar panels and wind turbines to help offset his power usage.
 
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greenpassion

Member
well thats how i plan to do it anyways is veg 2000 24 hrs for 1 1/2 months then move to 5000 for a the flowering months. anyways thanks for the info .
 
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hazetastic808

Well-Known Member
Wish I would have came across this earlier I am going to just copy my post if you could help me out with it.





hazetastic808 said:
I wanted to use some sort of flat fluorescents such as T5s, but after looking into it, it costs like $200 to ship anything that size to me even for the bulbs. So I'm looking into solutions from the hardware store instead. I'm looking into making a fixture similar to the T5HO 1s you can buy online, only using the 4 pin flat fluoros, specifically these http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100532502&N=10000003+90145+530216 and http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100159815&N=10000003+90145+530216 in a configuration like this


dimensions probably about 1.5'W x 2'L

Plan is to run a micro sog under it, just wondering if anyone could give me any information or a link to some about wiring up all the 4 pin sockets (i assume ill be able to buy these at the hardware store as well? If not there small enough it shouldn't be too much to ship.)

As well as what kind of ballast I will need to run 16 of those 18 watters.
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bricktown73

bricktown73

Well-Known Member
Atarijedi said:
I'd like to mention some quick things about electricity so we don't have 100s of redundant questions. First off, I'm an EE, so not as knowledgeable as bricktown73 in house wiring, standards and code, but I should be able to help out a bit in the theory.

The wiring coming from 1 breaker in your breaker box I will refer to as a circuit.

Most circuits are connected to a 15A Breaker/Fuse in your breaker box, this means that you can have 1800W of power on that circuit. You calculate that by using Ohms Law P (Power in Watts) = V (Voltage in Volts) * I (Current in Amps), or P = 120V * 15A. Now, I usually like to take a more conservative approach and use a Voltage rating of 110V, which would give us 1650W. So a 600W HPS bulb, at 110V would be using 5.454... Amps

So, our circuit can supply a maximum of 1650W. This means you can add anything you want to the circuit, as long as you don't go over 1650W, I would include a tolerance level, like 1% or 2% of that level, because breakers/fuses aren't perfect. So on this 1650W circuit, you could have 1-600W MH for Vegging, 1-600W HPS for Flowering, and 450W worth of Fans, Pumps, Electronics etc...

When wiring things using house wire, it is usually 14 gauge, although I am sure you could probably get it thicker (lower number), 14 gauge is usually rated to handle 17A maximum.

Also, I doubt you will ever find a house that has 3-Phase power going into it, unless it was ordered as a specialty thing, so don't worry about it, and I would just away from products that require it.
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Atari nailed the last few posts I haven't had a chance to answer. Good job atari. This thread is also for installation instruction too.
 
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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
hazetastic808 said:
Wish I would have came across this earlier I am going to just copy my post if you could help me out with it.
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Only the 2nd link worked for me, the 1st one said the product wasn't there anymore, but I'll assume it was a PL tube also.

Ok, so, you want to use PL's, which are Compact Fluorescent lights. Most compact fluorescents have the ballast built into the base. According to the description of the 2nd link, it says it will go into any socket a incandescent bulb will go into, so that means it doesn't need a ballast (ballast is built in), so it seems you only need to wire up regular light bulb sockets, do it in parallel so if one burns out, the rest will stay on.
 
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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
calibob said:
can I run a smaller wattage lamp with a higher wattage ballast?
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If you mean HPS or MH, then no you can't. Ballasts are meant to limit current because the bulbs can't do it themselves, so they will eat all the current they can until they burn themselves out.

If you stick a 400W HPS bulb on a 600W Ballast, it has an extra 200W of power it WILL use, and more than likely will just burn itself out.
 
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hazetastic808

Well-Known Member
Atarijedi said:
Only the 2nd link worked for me, the 1st one said the product wasn't there anymore, but I'll assume it was a PL tube also.

Ok, so, you want to use PL's, which are Compact Fluorescent lights. Most compact fluorescents have the ballast built into the base. According to the description of the 2nd link, it says it will go into any socket a incandescent bulb will go into, so that means it doesn't need a ballast (ballast is built in), so it seems you only need to wire up regular light bulb sockets, do it in parallel so if one burns out, the rest will stay on.
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Thanks for the help, I'm still a bit confused though, mainly about the part where you say it will work in any socket a incandescent will work in. But it has the 4 pin connector rather than the twist-on like normal bulbs. I'm mainly looking for information on what other materials I will need besides the bulbs themselves to run a series of them in a row like the pic I posted.

I know they have twist-on sockets that plug right into a y splitter, do they have something similar for these PLs with the 4 pin connectors that would plug right into an electrical outlet?
 
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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
hazetastic808 said:
Thanks for the help, I'm still a bit confused though, mainly about the part where you say it will work in any socket a incandescent will work in. But it has the 4 pin connector rather than the twist-on like normal bulbs. I'm mainly looking for information on what other materials I will need besides the bulbs themselves to run a series of them in a row like the pic I posted.

I know they have twist-on sockets that plug right into a y splitter, do they have something similar for these PLs with the 4 pin connectors that would plug right into an electrical outlet?
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I said that based on what is in the description in the link you provided, and I assumed there is a adapter socket in the package, maybe on the back side.

But I did a little bit of research, and I found that they do make screw-in adapters for PL's with a GX24 base, which is what the bulbs you linked to use.

Here is an examples of one http://www.goodmart.com/products/543083.htm
 
Maybetomorrow

Maybetomorrow

Well-Known Member
Whats a good rule of thumb when it comes to how much draw/ will raise an eye of the electric company and police? any rule of thumb for that one?
 
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saywhat

Active Member
Can you plug a HID Ballast into a GFCI protected circuit, one that trips between 4-6mA not the GFI type that trips at 30mA. Because the winding in the ballast will take a few mS to return on the current carrying neutral thus leaving in imbalance in the startup only which would trip the GFCI. I ask because I was going to run my shit on an ungrounded floating delta system so I can have one ground fault without tripping the system. The Ground fault protection will be around the B phase. Also I know I can cornerground the B phase, but not really feeling like taking a power outage. An ungrounded system definately needs ground fault protection but I don't want nuessance tripping! ARGGGGG
 
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Atarijedi

Well-Known Member
saywhat said:
Can you plug a HID Ballast into a GFCI protected circuit, one that trips between 4-6mA not the GFI type that trips at 30mA. Because the winding in the ballast will take a few mS to return on the current carrying neutral thus leaving in imbalance in the startup only which would trip the GFCI. I ask because I was going to run my shit on an ungrounded floating delta system so I can have one ground fault without tripping the system. The Ground fault protection will be around the B phase. Also I know I can cornerground the B phase, but not really feeling like taking a power outage. An ungrounded system definately needs ground fault protection but I don't want nuessance tripping! ARGGGGG
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Sorry, but I don't know enough about 3 phase to help you out. I learned a bit about it in some industrial controls courses, but it mainly focused on PLCs. You'll have to wait for either brick to answer you, or for an industrial electrician to come by.

Although, I can say that from what I remember, I didn't think that Delta systems had a neutral, only some Wye configurations did.

You must have a huge power requirement if you are going 3 phase though!
 
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