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

Hey "sparkies" haha

I got a question about slowing my fans. I have a 1 amp 175cfm 4 inch inline fan and I'm soon going to buy a 6 inch inline fan. The make is called "Stealth" not sure if you heard of them or not, cant find anything about them online cause their site is down, but it looks just like any other inline you would buy at a hydro store. And the 6 inch I will also buy from a hydro store. not sure what kindof motor they have other than AC and 120V. I want to know if I can use this variable transformer to slow them down. Also can I connect both fans to this variac and slow them both down with just the one device. Thanks http://www.iseincstore.com/291variabletransformer120vacsinglephaseinput0-132vacoutput30aopenpanelmount.aspx

Thedillestpickle said:

Hey "sparkies" haha

I got a question about slowing my fans. I have a 1 amp 175cfm 4 inch inline fan and I'm soon going to buy a 6 inch inline fan. The make is called "Stealth" not sure if you heard of them or not, cant find anything about them online cause their site is down, but it looks just like any other inline you would buy at a hydro store. And the 6 inch I will also buy from a hydro store. not sure what kindof motor they have other than AC and 120V. I want to know if I can use this variable transformer to slow them down. Also can I connect both fans to this variac and slow them both down with just the one device. Thanks http://www.iseincstore.com/291variabletransformer120vacsinglephaseinput0-132vacoutput30aopenpanelmount.aspx

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this will do both devices: http://www.lowes.com/pd_48977-539-SFSQ-F-HO-BL_0__?productId=3586482&Ntt=fan+control&pl=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=fan+control&facetInfo=

i just quickly picked one out ..... they get way cheaper/higher then 40$. i would just use two of the 20$ or less ones. that way each fan has its own switch.

i dont like the idea of slowing down a motor that is supposed to be getting a certain voltage, but i dont know a whole lot about those motors and plus people do it everyday with no probs, so i dont know.



soil

chopchop83 said:

Should I pull main fuse and then work on fusebox. Can I power the room by connecting to the 5th empty circuit and another circuit?
Im going to out to buy a clamp multimeter to see exactly what is being drawn on each circuit. thanks in advance!!!

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clamp meter = very good idea !
yes pull the main fuse before working inside panel.

if you have an empty circuit , then yes you can run a wire to that and use it.

i dont know much about your side of the pond either , just the basics. how ever many amps it says on the fuse is how much power you have available. (general safety says to not use more then 80% of your breaker/fuse. (so you can use 8 amps on a 10 amp fuse/breaker)

see how many watts each device uses and divide that by volts (120) (1000watts divided by 120 volts = 8.33 amps.)



hope that helps .... report back to see if were on the same page.





soil

slowing down a solid state type fan burns the brushes out from my understanding due to heat build up and added wear to the magnets and armature

LT1RX7 Drifter said:

slowing down a solid state type fan burns the brushes out from my understanding due to heat build up and added wear to the magnets and armature

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thanks for sharing that drift. thats something ive always wanted to know , just not bad enough to look it up. i dont slow my shit down an cant think of a reason why anyway.

i believe you are correct because with a furnace you have to have a certain amount of air coming out of it, you cant just restrict it down to one or two vents , it has to be enough to not slow the fan down much and your "understanding" confirms why.





soil

LT1RX7 Drifter said:

slowing down a solid state type fan burns the brushes out from my understanding due to heat build up and added wear to the magnets and armature

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Yea I have been having a hard time to find a good solution for slowing a fan down. What Ive been told is that those simple triacs will burn out a fan alot faster, Im sure alot of people are using them though. I don't really understand it but Ive been told you shouldnt really use anything that lowers the voltage to the fan. Seems like the only safe choice is a variable frequency drive, but I dont think those can be used on multiple fans and they cost so much, plus its hard to find one that has 120V input and 120V output. I think I will just go with the cheap solution here and check out it to see if its overheating, the fan also has a sensor to turn it off if it overheats. It will probably be cheap to just buy a new fan more often than buying a variable frequency drive, but then again having my fan die when I'm not home could cost me the whole crop. frustrating

I have a spare baseboard heater thermostat, perhaps I could run the power to the lights through that and set it to turn off at a very high temperature. If the fan dies while Im away the thermostat will kill 3/4 of the lights.

how can i figure out how much power im running to one section of my home? I believe the power run to this portion of the house is sopposed to be used to power a full bathrooms and two maybe three bedrooms. I usually keep one room completely off so i can use the power that would of been ran to that room, in the neighboring room. Ive had experiences with power shorts usually only when i turn the vaccume on, but id also have a heater and a 55 watt air filter running at the same time so ive learned to turn things off.

But im about to go from one 250 watt light, to two 600 watt lights, and the 250. I dont want to run multiple extension cords on one plug so i was gonna also see if there was some sort of power box unit that i can plug into an outlet that will help reduce power use. But all an all i just wanna know how to figure out the amount of power i can run to this spacific section of house, so i dont ever go over that amount. Im not sure if i should be looking at watts, hertz, ohms, ect.

Any advice would help! Thanks

Organics101 said:

how can i figure out how much power im running to one section of my home? I believe the power run to this portion of the house is sopposed to be used to power a full bathrooms and two maybe three bedrooms. I usually keep one room completely off so i can use the power that would of been ran to that room, in the neighboring room. Ive had experiences with power shorts usually only when i turn the vaccume on, but id also have a heater and a 55 watt air filter running at the same time so ive learned to turn things off.


But im about to go from one 250 watt light, to two 600 watt lights, and the 250. I dont want to run multiple extension cords on one plug so i was gonna also see if there was some sort of power box unit that i can plug into an outlet that will help reduce power use. But all an all i just wanna know how to figure out the amount of power i can run to this spacific section of house, so i dont ever go over that amount. Im not sure if i should be looking at watts, hertz, ohms, ect.

Any advice would help! Thanks

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Im not an electrician but I think you could go to the power box and rewire the cord that leads to the bedroom to 220V, then you can run double the wattage through that line. Most ballasts can run on either 110/220. You will only be able to use that for things that use 220V though, so youll need a second line for things that run on 110, or they make a 30$ adaptor that plugs into 220 and converts it to 110 as well so you could run the whole thing on that one line. Not an electrician though but that seems doable

Thedillestpickle said:

....rewire the cord that leads to the bedroom to 220V, then you can run double the wattage through that line. ....

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not the way to go. it is very unlikely that a line to your bedroom feeds only 1 room so you will probably need to rewire part of the house.are you sure that line doesn't feed an attic fan? energize that w/ 220 & you have a fire. much better and safer to run a new line from your breaker box to the room.
if you convert a 110 line to 220, you wont have a neutral so your $30 adaptor won't work either.

Organics101 said:

how can i figure out how much power im running to one section of my home? ....

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start by mapping your breakers -turn 1 off at a time & see what is powered by it. add up the draw from each device to know how much power is used on each circuit.most electric appliances have a plate showing the draw.
watts devided by volts to get amps -600 watts devided by 110 = 5.5 amps
amps x volts = watts -20amps x 110 volts = 2200 watts
never use more than 80% of what a breaker is rated for
a ballast uses more power than the bulb is rated for so your 600 watt ballast will draw about 650 if electronic or 700 watts if old style magnetic so your draw for 2 600 watt ballasts will be around 1400 or 1500 watts or 12.7 to 13.6 amps add 300 for your 250 watt light and your total will be over 16 amps. that will max out a 20 amp circuit all by itself.
most times a breaker will not be used for just 1 room so you may have 2-3 breakers in/near that room so you could spread the load around.
a vacuum cleaner or heater will draw at least 10 amps so its easy to overload a circuit w/ either.

Thanks for the correction mad cow, dont want to be setting people houses on fire lol

Thedillestpickle said:

Im not an electrician but I think you could go to the power box and rewire the cord that leads to the bedroom to 220V, then you can run double the wattage through that line. Most ballasts can run on either 110/220. You will only be able to use that for things that use 220V though, so youll need a second line for things that run on 110, or they make a 30$ adaptor that plugs into 220 and converts it to 110 as well so you could run the whole thing on that one line. Not an electrician though but that seems doable

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Oh i gotcha that does make sense. I would have to figure out eleectricity work an how inwould run that. I have a reletively large home so o know i can run a decent amount of power to my room. I just cant have to many thing rumming at once or illl overload the circuit and have to reset it

could someone with electrical qualifications answer a question i have please .......i have an old 'big' tv , that im planning on stripping out and using as a stealthy micro grow case , thing is ive heard i can be killed opening up a telly because of a static charge that it holds , is this true ? and if it is how do i go about making it safe ? the telly hasnt been plugged in for months .
thanks for any help .

old TVs have several capacitors in them like the 1 in a HPS ballast.I dont think they will hold a charge for months but to be safe, wear rubber gloves when gutting it. you are looking for a metal can anywhere in size from a D battery to a large soup can with 2 wire terminals. w/out touching anything w/ your hand, short the 2 terminals w/ a screwdriver. if it still has a charge,it will spark.
as a 2nd thought, after opening the back,throw a bucket of water inside.you be dry & wear rubber soled shoes. that should short out anything sill holding a charge. let dry and yank out the guts.
b4 trying the water, give it a day to see if anyone slams this advice. they may have a better way.

Awsome!!

Ok, so im gonna grow in an appartment building, its a 3 bedroom place iv got with my frend, and we are gonna use the free bedroom as a grow space.

We are using a grow tent from Secret jardin, the DR240W wich is 8x4x7.

We got a couple questions:

1. The outlets in the room have a maximum wattage of 1875w... is that for evrey individual outlet, meaning we can put 1875w on the first, 1875w on the secound and so on, or is that for the hole room circuit, meaning the combination of the 4 outlets in that room can not excede 1875w?

2. We made sure to get a place were we are the ones paying the electrical bill evrey month. We were wondering if the the landlorad still gets a record of the electrical usage of his units?

same question is asked & answered here
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/503576-appartment-growing-electrical-questions-thx.html#post6945236

love the bucket of water method of tv gutting lol sound like sound addvice to me hell use the hose

1.) I'm curious where you got the 1875w number from. In the US at 110v, 1875w would pull 17 amps. Would would be a little high in my opinion if you happened to have a 20 amp breaker. Standard breakers are 15 amp only, so I wouldnt want to go over 1300w or so in that case.

If you happened to be on a 220v line outside the states, thats 8.5 amps. Too high for a 10 amp breaker, or leaves room on a 20 amp breaker for more.

The maximum watts you can use is based on the amperage limit on the circuit. In general every outlet in a single room would be on the same circle. Plug something in each outlet that makes a light or sound, and flip the breaker to see.

Lets assume you are in the states on a standard 15 circuit. You could put up to about 1300 watts of equipment on a standard 15 amp breaker. If you need more, and all the outlets in your room are on the same circuit, you will be in a situation of needing extension cords from another room, which is in general safe, but another can of worms if the distance is far. You also have to make sure you use the appropriate thickness cord because it can be a major fire hazard.

2.) There would be no reason your landlord would see the electric bills, even if you didn't pay them. At least where I'm from electric bills stick with the person. If you bailed on the bill and moved, its on your personal credit, and they would never even go after the landlord for it. Only water/sewage here is tied to the address. The bills go to the residence name if they changed it, but if you move away or something, whoever owns the place would be responsible for it. Even if your landlord did happen to see it, who cares you could blame it on space heaters/AC unit or something, not that it will ever come up. I have a cheap space heater than by itself runs 1500w.

Meangreenfarmingmachines said:

Awsome!!

Ok, so im gonna grow in an appartment building, its a 3 bedroom place iv got with my frend, and we are gonna use the free bedroom as a grow space.

We are using a grow tent from Secret jardin, the DR240W wich is 8x4x7.

We got a couple questions:

1. The outlets in the room have a maximum wattage of 1875w... is that for evrey individual outlet, meaning we can put 1875w on the first, 1875w on the secound and so on, or is that for the hole room circuit, meaning the combination of the 4 outlets in that room can not excede 1875w?

2. We made sure to get a place were we are the ones paying the electrical bill evrey month. We were wondering if the the landlorad still gets a record of the electrical usage of his units?

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LOL should have added to leave unplugged.
I figured after a drenching, anything that would hold a charge would short out.

Bro you have just saved me I am new to growing and I want to hook up my garage for a 3 tent grow . 2 2000 watt tents on movers 2 digital 2 old school ballast for flower. 1 1000 mh tent for veg I have a newer home 4 years old 2400 sf I want to use my garage can you run down what I'll need to do cost est and how to word it my hydro shop has a guy . the thing is i am going to sell in a few months so can I take it with me or should I just weight for my new home to go bigger. If you could run some options by me that would be grate. Thank you for helping a noob