Electrical assistance please! :)

Ok, here's the dealio.

120volt system.

I have a banded 40 breaker at the main box with two thick black wires coming from it.
These wires go out to the sub panel in my growing area.
Inside the sub panel these two wires attach to a single breaker that has two 20's unbanded on it.

I need three separate circuits.
2 for in the growing area and 1 for the area outside the grow area.

Whats the best way to do this?
I can supply pictures if needed of the boxes.

do you have room for a spare breaker in the main electrical panel or in the one in your growing room?. if so, run the wiring, outside requires different wiring, and hook to a new 20 amp breaker.(make sure to use atleast 12/2 for that, 30amp need 10/2). x/y = gauge/number of travelers

wtfh4xx said:

Ok, here's the dealio.

120volt system.

I have a banded 40 breaker at the main box with two thick black wires coming from it.
These wires go out to the sub panel in my growing area.
Inside the sub panel these two wires attach to a single breaker that has two 20's unbanded on it.

I need three separate circuits.
2 for in the growing area and 1 for the area outside the grow area.

Whats the best way to do this?
I can supply pictures if needed of the boxes.

Click to expand...

dont really get what ur saying, the main lead wires from the main box should just be attached to the box posts not a breaker.

what amprage is the sub panel and the breaker that powers it?

wtfh4xx said:

Ok, here's the dealio.

120volt system.

I have a banded 40 breaker at the main box with two thick black wires coming from it.
These wires go out to the sub panel in my growing area.
Inside the sub panel these two wires attach to a single breaker that has two 20's unbanded on it.

I need three separate circuits.
2 for in the growing area and 1 for the area outside the grow area.

Whats the best way to do this?
I can supply pictures if needed of the boxes.

Click to expand...

Look in the "Bored Electrician" thread, somewhere around page 31 or 32 - I had the exact same issue and had an electrician come out to give me 40 more amps to the garage, but if you know what you're doing, he (IAmStoned) gave me instructions on how to do it myself.

I decline, since I'm a moron and I value my life more then $500, but the directions seemed pretty easy.

HTH.

wtfh4xx said:

Ok, here's the dealio.

120volt system.

I have a banded 40 breaker at the main box with two thick black wires coming from it.
These wires go out to the sub panel in my growing area.
Inside the sub panel these two wires attach to a single breaker that has two 20's unbanded on it.

I need three separate circuits.
2 for in the growing area and 1 for the area outside the grow area.



Whats the best way to do this?
I can supply pictures if needed of the boxes.

Click to expand...

sounds like you have .. a two pole forty amp breaker feeding a sub panel ... you SHOULD be able to add a breaker to your sub Panel ... hard to say without more info .. if u were a buddy ... I wouldn't give advice unless I came over and looked at it ..... sounds like you are
NOT comfortable around electricity Electricity is nothin' to fool around with ..

it can and will start fires and even kill people ... get some proffesional advice

we dont even know what kinda load you are running and plan on running. we can figure out what you need by that, and the distance of the runs

Alright thanks for input so far.

The breaker at the main panel is 40 Amps. It has two thick black wires leaving this banded 40 breaker.
It then runs underground 200 feet out to my growing building.
Inside the building it enters the subpanel and each of the big thick black wires coming from the main panels banded 40 attaches to a 20.
The entire building is running on one of the 20's, the other 20 is free.
Im thinking im just going to run the 12/12 cable you see in the bottom right up to the rafters and over to the growing room. The growing room has two outlets.
I will just disconnect one of the outlets from the main building 20amp circuit and attach it to the 12/12 cable.
There is no load on the main 20 other than an electric fence unit, so it shoudl basically give me 20amps to each outlet in the growing room.

I am using stinkbuds growing system with two 600hps lights.

Later I will expand to running two of his setups with a total of four 600's.
This is why I am planning ahead and creating to separate circuits since a 120volt circuit shoudl only be running 2300watts.
That way I will have two 600 lights, 4 pumps, and a 450CFM fan on each 20 amp circuit.


Here's pictures.

The main 40.




The sub panel.





The 20amp on the left is the one the whole building is running on.
The one on the right is attached to the 12/12 cable.

you cant put an other breaker in there but you can just double up on the breaker on the right

is it 240 ac v out there

get 12 /3 wire your hot is black you neutral is white and your bare wire is your ground

It has the potential to be 240, but then Im limited to a single line. :\

The picture shows the box setup how I am talking abotu ti being.
So does it look alright?
Basically the building had two circuits and I just moved what was on the right one to the one on the left and attached the cable to the one on the right.
Remember, there's no real power draw in this building aside from what my grow will take.

I believe it is 12/3 wire. Look at the picture and you can see it has a black, white, and bare.

p.s. use ur edit button

you need a new loadcenter.. for the sub panel. you can upgrade that 40amp breaker to a 60 amp breaker. once thats done you can demo the old sub panel and replace it with a new 60amp loadcenter... that will get you the extra space you need. do not bond the new loadcenter, it will require a seperate grounding bar or the bond screw should be removed, depending on what type of load center you buy. if that sounds like greek i can break it down for you......

Sounds like ancient greek.

I think it will work how I have it setup.
Can someone just look at the pics and confirm this?

Also, I dont think I can up the amps form the main panel.
I believe the wire running underground is rated 50 amps.

IAm5toned said:

you need a new loadcenter.. for the sub panel. you can upgrade that 40amp breaker to a 60 amp breaker. once thats done you can demo the old sub panel and replace it with a new 60amp loadcenter... that will get you the extra space you need. do not bond the new loadcenter, it will require a seperate grounding bar or the bond screw should be removed, depending on what type of load center you buy. if that sounds like greek i can break it down for you......

Click to expand...

yah replace that sub pan. it can only fit 2 breakers. your wiring looks like 8 gauge. which can only handle around 55 amps. so you may need to go with 6 gauge which can handle 100amps. or you can run a 12 or 10 gauge wire for a new 20 amp breaker with another panel

if you put to much load on a circuit that has inadequate breaker for the wiring (like pulling 40 amps on 12 gauge or 60 on ten gauge) it can melt the wiring and cause a fire. a 1000w ballast use around 5 amps

im the guy that wrote the thread you were refrenced to for starters
ok ill break it down for you.
i am rating this service for you in continuous duty cycles, just like a pro would... hint hint
(4) 600 watt ballasts= 45w apeice for a total of 180 watts. the ballasts use watts.. its the heat thats generated
(4) 600 lamps= 2400 watts
i will add another 200watts for pumps and fans and misc crap you need.
this is 2780 watts.
and, despite what you think, there is 240volts in that subpanel.. get a meter and read breaker to breaker if you think im playing you.
you already have enough power there...
the trick is splitting it up correctly.
you can run 1920 watts on a 20 amp circuit.
so the ideal setup would be to have on of stinkbuds setups on one breaker, and one on the other.
if it was me, i would want the fence on a seperate gfi breaker, which is why i reccomended switching out the load center, but its you so hey, your deal.
dont double up a wire on the breaker thats how you cause a fire.
use a short peice of wire coming from the breaker to the two wires and use a wirenut to tie them altogether..

good luck

Thanks alot man, Ill make sure to go add that wire and wire nut that asap.
Yeah Im aware there's 240 there.

And I plan on it being setup exactly how you say, one system on each circuit.
One on the main building circuit and another on the circuit ill be making with the 12ga cable.

whoa ... #12 wire is only good for 20 amp circuit ...

gonna look back for pic's ............ in 12/3 wire the bare wire ... is Ground ..... any white wire that is used for a hot must be colored to indicate that it is not neutral ..

check your wire guage with a good pair of wire strippers .. being careful not to nick or cut strands ...(be sure circuit is OFF b 4 touching any bare wire

IAm5toned said:

im the guy that wrote the thread you were refrenced to for starters
ok ill break it down for you.
i am rating this service for you in continuous duty cycles, just like a pro would... hint hint
(4) 600 watt ballasts= 45w apeice for a total of 180 watts. the ballasts use watts.. its the heat thats generated
(4) 600 lamps= 2400 watts
i will add another 200watts for pumps and fans and misc crap you need.
this is 2780 watts.
and, despite what you think, there is 240volts in that subpanel.. get a meter and read breaker to breaker if you think im playing you.
you already have enough power there...
the trick is splitting it up correctly.
you can run 1920 watts on a 20 amp circuit.
so the ideal setup would be to have on of stinkbuds setups on one breaker, and one on the other.
if it was me, i would want the fence on a seperate gfi breaker, which is why i reccomended switching out the load center, but its you so hey, your deal.
dont double up a wire on the breaker thats how you cause a fire.
use a short peice of wire coming from the breaker to the two wires and use a wirenut to tie them altogether..

good luck

Click to expand...

yah you know your shit, thats for sure. I cant wait til i actually have lighting electrical problems. lol

IAstoned has u on the right track.. c5rftw is right too


a new load center would be nice .. but an additional subpanel could be fed from your existing subpanel

#8 awg = 55 amps #6 = 75 amps #4 =95 amps .. u might be able to upsize breakers at source ... U CAN buy mini bereakers doubling your load ... one two pole 240 and two 20 or even 30A breakers .. depending on feeder wire size and load wire size


u need a bushing around the romex going down in the picture ... to protect the wire from sharp edges