A Bored Electrician to Answer Your Questions

hey guys. i just read through this whole topic and "stoners with no idea + playing with electricity supply = cold shivers down my spine!" IAmstoned i take my hat off to you bro. you have been super helpful and patient even when answering the same stupid questions over and over. im out of work at the moment to and i know how killer boring it is, so to keep me occupied ive started building a stealth cupboard for my first grow. my question is

i want to run a lighting tower i borrowed from my local sports ground to grow with and an old boeing 747 jet engine i had lying around as a fan to get the air in there moving but ive only got a 9v battery and an old pushbike with a headlight generator on it to power it all. will this be enough for me to run everthing and can i wire it all up with straightened out paper clips? if not can i plug it into one end of an extension chord and tie the other end of it straight onto the powerline? also i was thinking of submerging it all in water to keep it cool? any help would be great! LOL!

Nah seriously though im experimenting with making my own highpowered led growlights and im a little unsure of how to connect the power to the drivers. i have 3 waterproof outdoor 30w 2.5A 240/12v regulated transformers i want to wire together but while the outputs are poled there inputs are just two white unmarked wires. as they are taking in 240AC am i right in assuming so long as i parallel them together using the same respective sides it doesnt matter which feed i connect to the hot or the neutral? ill try to draw a little picture which should help. cheers bro!

The Cat said:

hey guys. i just read through this whole topic and "stoners with no idea + playing with electricity supply = cold shivers down my spine!" IAmstoned i take my hat off to you bro. you have been super helpful and patient even when answering the same stupid questions over and over. im out of work at the moment to and i know how killer boring it is, so to keep me occupied ive started building a stealth cupboard for my first grow. my question is

i want to run a lighting tower i borrowed from my local sports ground to grow with and an old boeing 747 jet engine i had lying around as a fan to get the air in there moving but ive only got a 9v battery and an old pushbike with a headlight generator on it to power it all. will this be enough for me to run everthing and can i wire it all up with straightened out paper clips? if not can i plug it into one end of an extension chord and tie the other end of it straight onto the powerline? also i was thinking of submerging it all in water to keep it cool? any help would be great! LOL!

Nah seriously though im experimenting with making my own highpowered led growlights and im a little unsure of how to connect the power to the drivers. i have 3 waterproof outdoor 30w 2.5A 240/12v regulated transformers i want to wire together but while the outputs are poled there inputs are just two white unmarked wires. as they are taking in 240AC am i right in assuming so long as i parallel them together using the same respective sides it doesnt matter which feed i connect to the hot or the neutral? ill try to draw a little picture which should help. cheers bro!

Click to expand...

the secret to AC is there is no polarity
tho it would help if i knew if you were in north america or not to give you a better explanation
but yes, you seem to have the right idea.
you might want to bond the common outputs together on the load side of those transformers tho, transformers have a tendency to 'lag' behind the line voltage, which means they can have potential between themselves= (short circuit between the seperate positives) just like when jump starting a car, when dealing with parrallel dc voltages, you have to connect the common ground together first
heres what i mean:




as far as your liquid cooled jet engine pushbike powerline idea, i would try submerging the whole thing in a pool of gasoline, i hear it makes a great coolant

ok sorry i should have started with im in australia with a standard 240v on a 15A circuit. so your saying i need to bridge the negative output wires of all the transformers on the one feed even if they are each running there own closed circuits? does it matter if they are different ratings? (1 30w and 2 20w)

if they are circuits in the same enclosure they need to be bonded together

legend mate good idea for a thread thanks and i shall be sure to find some questions to ask XD

but heres one for you

ive wanted to try and do this for some time but not to sure how the hell i would go about setting it up
is there an efficient way to run my 2 400w hps from a solar pannel ? lol would be ace if you could answer this one

xogenic said:

legend mate good idea for a thread thanks and i shall be sure to find some questions to ask XD

but heres one for you

ive wanted to try and do this for some time but not to sure how the hell i would go about setting it up
is there an efficient way to run my 2 400w hps from a solar pannel ? lol would be ace if you could answer this one

Click to expand...

lol theres always a way
not sure if you want to pay for it though...

CLICK ME

your also going to need about 12-24 1500 CCA batteries to run 800w

damit lol that was quick

looks like a hell of a setup like would love to give it a go but $7000 is a bit much for me lol

think i mite try and make my own solar pannels and se where it goes from there lol

good luck

The Good Doctor said:

He never answered my question, just gave lectures about laws. . .

Click to expand...

seriously brother, where i am from respect would be to read before hand that this question has been asked, and that any right minded person would not give u advice on how to A: kill yourself and B: kill yourself trying to steal electricity and if an answer is not given, then to understand there is a good reason why. in a nutshell i already asked this question. i expected no answer. the reason why i expected no answer is because self electrocution by accident causes a ton of deaths a year. at my work a fellow welder accidently touched a frayed wire about a year ago. 220 shot through him and killed him. this was on a breaker. it is possible to tap into a power line but that isn't breakered. your fucked, cooked bisquit. electricians go through many years of training, so if no answer there is a reason.

if you want to cut power costs, there is a device that will allow you to use say 1000 whats but will only show 600-800

so i just purchased a couple of fans off the internet and it said in their description for them they were rated 230/240v 50/60hz but they just arrived and they only say on them 230v 60hz. we run 240v 50hz here so whats the deal. from what ive read they will still run but at a lower speed and run hotter? is this all or will they catch fire or something? any help bro would be sweet. you found any work yet?

your going to neeed at least 1 15amp circuit to run that stuff, a 20 amp would be better but a 15 should do the job.

your going to need a heavy duty cord, #12awg to plug that ballast into. no one likes cords running across the house so what you need to find out is if the room the closet is in has its own circuit.

most plugs are not designed to handle such a large load for such a long time (12/12) so your really going to have to keep a close eye on this one

Click to expand...

I really do appreciate your help on this, I've alredy done so much research and so much is contradictory from forum to forum, it's so much easier to have a genius who knows what he's talking about to make it one step easier.

So there is a 15 amp outlet near my closet, but I'm even more worried now after reading that guy's post about the 600w that nearly burnt his house down. Especially since I'll be pulling 1000w 24 hours then 12/12 over about 8 weeks!

I read about a 1000w super gaming system with 4 quad sli graphics cards, a rediculous cooling system/power supply setup, etc. on a 15amp outlet; so I figure my 15 amp outlet can handle a heavy 1000w power pull for a long time since that comp was on 24/7 and I've read a bunch of other forums with people using 1000w on 15 amps because that's about the maximum it can pull. But is there some sort of fault swith I can setup to prevent a fire because obviously the last thing I want to do is burn this place down :X

Also is there a way to check the outlet to see if the wiring is new? I just want to have everything setup as safely as possible before I go with it.

And when you say I need a #12 awg what is that? I've got a Lumatek 120/240v 1000w ballast so I don't think I need any new wiring besides my 1000w mh light and the output chord coming out of the ballast.

P.S. I noticed on an earlier question you mentioned that you can have an electrician upgrade the electrical circuitry to your house. I may be buying a house in a few months and I'll definitely have a grow room there. How would I contact an electrical company and request an upgrade, is it as simple as picking up the phone and asking for it and paying the upgrade fee? And if so should I request specifics, such as having all the outlets be 20 amp or things like that?

How do you wire cpu fans in series to run off one adapter. my adapter can run like 3 to 4 fans its just i dont no how to connect them together. my fans have red and black wires only. any advice?

im not sure if you can wire pc fans in series, ive never tried it myself.. they will work better wired in parallel. series circuits draw more current than than parallel circuits but the way you would do it is-
connect the red positive wire on the first fan to the positive on the power supply.
connect the black negative wire on the first fan to the positive red wire on the second fan.
repeat this step for as many fans as your using
connect the final black negative wire to the power supply negative

to wire them in parallel (recommended)
connect all the red wires to the positive on the power supply
connect all the black wires to negative on the power supply

Thanks heaps for the info here!

My question was already answered but thought i'd give my appreciation and thanks anyway

The Cat said:

so i just purchased a couple of fans off the internet and it said in their description for them they were rated 230/240v 50/60hz but they just arrived and they only say on them 230v 60hz. we run 240v 50hz here so whats the deal. from what ive read they will still run but at a lower speed and run hotter? is this all or will they catch fire or something? any help bro would be sweet. you found any work yet?

Click to expand...

So any help? also they have a small round metal tube that looks like it could take a screw coming out of the body marked with an earth symbol on it. do they need to be earthed and how?

IAm5toned said:

im not sure if you can wire pc fans in series, ive never tried it myself.. they will work better wired in parallel. series circuits draw more current than than parallel circuits but the way you would do it is-
connect the red positive wire on the first fan to the positive on the power supply.
connect the black negative wire on the first fan to the positive red wire on the second fan.
repeat this step for as many fans as your using
connect the final black negative wire to the power supply negative

to wire them in parallel (recommended)
connect all the red wires to the positive on the power supply
connect all the black wires to negative on the power supply

Click to expand...

Thanks man i appreciate the response so quickely.

The Cat said:

So any help? also they have a small round metal tube that looks like it could take a screw coming out of the body marked with an earth symbol on it. do they need to be earthed and how?

Click to expand...

sorry man i mustve lost track of your post in the mix...

i would definitly earth the fans. 'earthing' or more correctly called GROUNDING is a conductor (wire) the connects to the frame of your device ( in this case motor) and in turn is connected to the EQUIPMENT GROUNDING CONDUCTOR in your electrical system ( grounding bus or bar in electrical panel, or even the ground in the nearest outlet) you could connect it to the grounding wire in the outlet you plan on plugging the fans into, it would be the easiest way...

as far as whether or not they will work depends on the motor size... the bigger the motor, the more likely they will fail.

most a/c motors are made to operate at either 50 hz or 60hz, but not all of them.
best case scenario they will work just fine but they will turn at a lower rpm then if they were running on 60hz.
middle of the road scenario is they will run a little slow and get a little warm to the touch. if this is the case its best to run them at the fastest speed setting they have.
worst case scenario is they will run really slow and begin to overheat quite rapidly... if the motor gets to hot it will melt a built in centrifugal safety switch called the 'solder pot' once this happens, your motor is junk, and cant be used again without being serviced @ the factory.
i wouldnt be scared to try it BUT i would keep an eye on it. if they start to overheat too quickly and it turns into a problem you can get a variable frequency drive to control the Hz, just leave it set at 60hz and it will work as intended... but VFD's are not exactly cheap though. hope this answered your question!

personally, if it was me, i wouldnt do it, but i am picky about such things; but i also wouldnt be scared to try it if all i had were 60hz fans and 50hz power

how do you hook a computer fan up so that it can be plugged in to an outlet? if you only have the computer fan with the two wires sticking out?

vfd's for grow room fans? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ just buy the correct fan. believe me it's way cheaper. i deal with industrial mechanics that have 30+ years of electrical experience that just cant't figure out how to set them up right. it's easy as hell if you know what you're doing but can be confusing to some.

KSMO said:

how do you hook a computer fan up so that it can be plugged in to an outlet? if you only have the computer fan with the two wires sticking out?

Click to expand...

unless the computer fan is 120 volts you're going to need a power supply or ac adapter. what's the voltage of the fan? 12 v?