A Bored Electrician to Answer Your Questions

thatguy858 said:

So what your saying is, I have limited ammount of watts per circuit. So the vedge room would be better off being in the other bedroom, on a different circuit.

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exactly. you need to split the load up as much as possible

IAm5toned said:

well... trick question.
one will run cheaper than the other, but only very slightly. here's why:

what really matters is not the ballast's voltage, but the ballast's power factor.


a ballast is an inductive load... so its going to have a low power factor to begin with. your cheaper magnetic ballasts typically have the lowest power factors, while digital ballasts have active power factor correctors built in, which gives them a higher power factor rating. (this is also what makes them 'digital', FYI.)

you could say that the power factor is a measurement of efficiency of the wattage/current demand of an energized device.

however, unfortunately, the power companies bill you for wattage, not amperage. because amperage is inversely proportionate to voltage, however wattage remains the same.
example-

1000w @ 120v = 8.333 amps
1000w @ 240v = 4.166 amps

so why do I save money when i use 240v then, if the wattage never changes?

that, is a rather simple question now that you know what power factor is.
the power factor of a device is dependent on the amperage of the circuit.... the power factor is determined by:

the lower the amperage, the higher the power factor.
a 240v ballast uses less amperage than a 120v ballast, both pulling the same watts, which increases the 240v ballasts power factor... in laymans terms, because its more efficient.

hope i didnt confuse you to bad. power factor is a complex thing to understand, and i tried to keep it as simple as I could.

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Thanks I am an electrical apprentice and i asked my journeyman why lights are ran on 277V and he didnt have a straight answer.

lol a true journeyman is a thing of rarity these days....

respect you journeyman, however. just because he couldnt answer a very difficult question that requires a good 3 years of trade school to even remotely understand off the top of his head, doesnt mean he is dumb.

Ok Mr. electric... I hard wired my thermal shut off switch w/ delay into my extension plug. I bought this switch used and never checked to see if it worked before I rewired it, now it doesnt work. Here are some pics, what do you think?

i think somethings wrong with the cube relay.... disconnect all that crap from the thermal switch and verify its operation. then connect one side of incoming voltage for the relay coil in series across the thermal switch, connect the other leg to line. verify relay fires when thermal switch opens. you sure your relay coil voltage is the same as your line voltage?

So... What you are saying is that it looks like it is wired correctly??? I think you are right, I think the relay is bad but I have no way to check this because I don't have a meter and I'm too high to go get one right now.

i cant really tell if its wired right or wrong from the pics.... the relay is too small for me to tell the pinout (order of wire connections)

Mr electrician, I bought a lighting controller as you mentioned earlier and wired in a 50 amp 6/2-8/1 gauge range cord, though it took a while because the wires were fat compared to the holes. Anyways it seems to be working, plugged in my fridge and some other things to it. However when I plugged my fridge in the bulb went out. I also plugged in a 23w cfl and that shit exploded about 2 minutes after. I have yet to plug in the ballast. Do you know why this happened? The controller takes 240 or 120 v plugs and the two things i plugged in were both 120v. dont know if that had anything to do with it. much obliged.

alright i had a 400 watt metal halide that was an all-in-one fixture, so i took the ballast out of the hood and made it remote. this thing is built to run on either 120 or 240 volts, i got it wired for 120

but when i plug it in, the bulb lights up slowly, flickering a lot. then right about when it reaches peak brightness, the light goes out. i tried this with 2 bulbs that are both used (i got the thing very used) so i want to know if the bulbs are both burnt (they would light up and die?) or maybe did i mess up somewhere in the process of removing the ballast?
or maybe the ballast is garbage. but i dont necessary want to buy a metal halide bulb if the ballast is broken, because then its just not worth it for me.

anyone got info on the bulb dying out like that? is it always a case of the bulb being burnt out?

Iamabongman said:

Mr electrician, I bought a lighting controller as you mentioned earlier and wired in a 50 amp 6/2-8/1 gauge range cord, though it took a while because the wires were fat compared to the holes. Anyways it seems to be working, plugged in my fridge and some other things to it. However when I plugged my fridge in the bulb went out. I also plugged in a 23w cfl and that shit exploded about 2 minutes after. I have yet to plug in the ballast. Do you know why this happened? The controller takes 240 or 120 v plugs and the two things i plugged in were both 120v. dont know if that had anything to do with it. much obliged.

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hmmm sounds like theres 240v on the 120v plugs. you need a volt meter... to test the voltage at the outlets!

ClosetKing said:

alright i had a 400 watt metal halide that was an all-in-one fixture, so i took the ballast out of the hood and made it remote. this thing is built to run on either 120 or 240 volts, i got it wired for 120

but when i plug it in, the bulb lights up slowly, flickering a lot. then right about when it reaches peak brightness, the light goes out. i tried this with 2 bulbs that are both used (i got the thing very used) so i want to know if the bulbs are both burnt (they would light up and die?) or maybe did i mess up somewhere in the process of removing the ballast?
or maybe the ballast is garbage. but i dont necessary want to buy a metal halide bulb if the ballast is broken, because then its just not worth it for me.

anyone got info on the bulb dying out like that? is it always a case of the bulb being burnt out?

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might be a bad capacitor...
might also be the wrong lamp.. do you know what the ansi codes are for the lamps and the ballasts? they should be something like m59

Mr. Electric,

I came home one day and found the plastic all melted on my surge protector where my 600 watt ballast was plugged in. Went to DIY store and bought a $30-40 surge protector by belkin.

The guy there said it didn't matter and that it would happen again because it wasn't a problem with the protector but that my wire was not grounded.

What does this mean? Is he right? Do I have anything to worry about (like fire when I'm not home)?

before:



after (light is now in the mechanical timer):

dont ever listen to a salesman

its not because the cord isnt grounded. NEC plainly says that light fixtures with a cord length shorter than x amount of feet (i cant remember the footage off the top of my head, i beleive its 8') a ground is not required. and since the ballast core of the ballast is a transformer, it will create its own 'ground' field anyways....
but back to the plug being burnt up. it happens because the receptacles inside the power strip are not SPEC Grade or NEMA rated for continuous duty inductive loads....
the same thing will happen to the timer outlet if it is not rated for at least 780 watts inductive[780w = (1) 600w HID light]. often power strips are rated for resistive loads, rather than inductive loads, it is a trick of advertising so that the company can print its good for 1500w; when in actuality its only good for 1500w resistive. then in small tiny print somewhere on the package it will say not for inductive loads, or resistive loads only. this is also common practice for manufacturers of timers and relays as well.
an HID lamp/ballast is inductive.....
the only things these days that have resistive loads are heating elements and incandescent lamps.
anything that has either a motor, a transformer, a ballast, is 'electronic' or 'digital' is an inductive load.
rate your timer and service equipment accordingly.
as far as your particular problem, if you happen to know the model number of the belkin power strip i can look it up and tell you what its rated for in inductive loads, same as the timer... im afraid you might have wasted some cash.

kappainf said:

Nice job in the diagram, thank you very much, how much do I owe ya? I really feel like I should be paying you for this professional help. Thanks again!

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Well... I installed the relay and it works fine when the light is on. When the light kicks on, the fan does as well and runs at the 200 cfm like it is supossed to. However, when the light kicks off, the fan does as well. The fan is supposed to switch over to the CVC and run at 25 cfm when the light turns off. Also, when the light turns off, the relay makes a buzzing noise but the fan doesn't run. I think I followed the diagram exactly, however, it is possible that I have something out of place. Any ideas???

The thermal shut off switch we were talking about earlier is totally fine, I was not bringing into account the 15 min delay on the damn thing, knew it had a delay, but I thought the delay would only be triggered if the temp exceeded the set point. Oh well, just glad it works. Thanks again for all the help also.

kappainf said:

...The fan is supposed to switch over to the CVC and run at 25 cfm when the light turns off. Also, when the light turns off, the relay makes a buzzing noise but the fan doesn't run...

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The way the diagram is drawn, the equipment should operate like this:
The exhaust fan should shut off if the light is off, and the cvc should be on.
If the light is on, the fan should be on, and the cvc off.

The way you say the relay buzzes makes me think that the problem is either:
a) its a bad relay...
b) or the cvc is not wired right...
c) the cvc runs on a different voltage than 120v

are you having breakers trip when this happens?

Actually, before I messed with the relay, I ran just the cvc inline on the hot side of the power cord and it worked great.

http://www.solerpalau-usa.com/Brochures/Residential_Light_Comm/CVC.pdf

I am using the CVC 150

One end of the CVC is wired to the normally closed point on the relay and the other end of the CVC is wired to the nuetral wire. No breakers have tripped either.

What would be the best way for me to run my room? I am going to have 2 1k's, mini split ac, dehumi, pumps, chiller and all those little stuff. Its just an extra room i have but it has only the regular socket for 110v. My house has blown out a couple of sockets from the girls using the blow dryer, i think the wiring sucks in my house. Got a couple of other 110v socket that around that house that also doesnt work. I do have an extra 30a 125/250v socket from the laundry room. Both the washer and dryer uses the 110v, could i do something with that?