Experienced Electrician! Here to Answer Any and All Growroom Electrical Questions
- Thread starter bricktown73
- Start date
NewHiddenGrower
Well-Known Member
Martibacardi
Active Member
Okay thanks i know its not exactly the best place to post my question i just couldn't really find a site where ppl knew their shtuff like this. Thanks for the link though.
REEFS
Well-Known Member
Well for one thing I would lose the A/C unit which is the most likely culprit (they draw a-lot of power). You could buy reflectors (or rig the ones you have)for your lights that are setup for air cooling buy three in line fans pipe your light system together run the pipe from an intake through both the lights and out of your growroom. Make sure all of your fans are blowing in the same direction put one fan at the intake (blowing toward the lights) put your second fan in between your two lights blowing in the same direction and the last fan as your exhaust (sucking the hot air away from your light) This is the most important part the exhaust needs to be directed outside of your grow room. You will be amazed on how much this alone will cool down your grow room. Another thing that is VERY IMPORTANT never vent you exhaust out side your house, The reason for that is the infrared equiptment the police and dea use to bust people. Your exhaust sticks out like a sore thumb on the infrared. Believe it or not this is the way most indoor grows get busted. Peace.
REEFS
Well-Known Member
Damn, I thought I was the only one. I got to find something more original I guess.Hey REEFS....Nice avatar, but does this mean I have to find a new chipmunk?
erkelsgoo420
New Member
Do u happen to have an idiot proof guide to making my light (250w mh agro-max "high yield lighting") into a remote ballast its ok the way it is but if there is a way to do this or even cooltube it that woulb be killer. Thanks for the thread its saved me a great deal of pain already!
NewHiddenGrower
Well-Known Member
hey i cant man, even without the lights the temp is at 83.
So please help me fix my eletric problem. I want to use my 1000HPS lights.
REEFS
Well-Known Member
Well first of all do you know anything about construction? I only ask because there is no easy solution to this problem. How close is your main breaker box to you grow room? Look inside of your breaker box , your main breaker should be labeled how many amps it is. Every breaker is a separate part you can buy at the home depot. Add up the amps of all your breakers except the main, it should never exceed what you main is capable of handling. (say you have a 100 amp main breaker you add up all the other breakers and it comes up with 80 amps this means you can add another 20 amp breaker) If this is the case you need to first of all switch off the main breaker take the breaker box out of the wall (look around there will be some screws on the inside) install the new breaker and figure out how you are gonna run new wiring to your grow room. Buy a new outlet and wire it up. With typical A/C wiring the color code is black=hot/ white=common/copper=ground. If you don't have any amps to play with then get a really THICK extension cord 12 OR 10 ga. and plug it into an outlet that runs off another breaker that does not have to much draw on it run it to your A/C. I wish I could help more good luck.
NewHiddenGrower
Well-Known Member
No i dont know anything about eletric, but im willing to learn. Im willing to listening to every little thing someone tells me.
I took some pictures, but im not sure if this is the breaker box.
Theres 2 boxes, the one on the left is the one with the switch i have to switch back on when the power goes out in my garage.
Thank you very much.
Please understand this is very important to me...
Ill send you some free clones or bud if you can help me
REEFS
Well-Known Member
If you know nothing about electric then I suggest you do nothing with the internals of your breaker (I don't want to get you killed) If I were you I would go to the home depot or another hardware store and buy a spool of wire (just tell them you have a home wiring project or adding on a few outlets they will know what your talking about) the wire I am talking about is actually three wires inside insulation. buy 1 female plug and 1 male plug. on three prong plugs there is the bottom middle prong which is the ground (copper wire no shielding) the left smaller prong is the common (typically green or white) and the right larger prong is the hot wire (black). wire the female plug the same. you have just built your own extension cord. Basic home wiring is flat and a-lot easier to conceal than a typical extension cord. Now it is just trial and error. set up your lights plug in the A/C unit to the cord you just built. Now turn on every thing in your house and plug you A/C into different outlets in your house until you find a winner. Leave every thing on for at least an hour if nothing happens then you are ready to conceal the cord. run the cord under the carpet or behind the trim. And your done.
REEFS
Well-Known Member
Thats a prairie dog rolling a joint. no problem, I had never seen that avatar before and thought I was being original. Peace.Hey REEFS... just a note to say hi and thanks. Now I wish I had a prarie dog avatar...
Saul Good
Active Member
NewHiddenGrower... Hmmmmm....the pix aren't really very clear which makes diagnosis more difficult, but it appears that your MAIN panel (the bigger one) is a 200 amp service. It also "appears" that the smaller one is a sub-panel. Probably a 100 amp panel, but it's hard to tell without looking at the breakers.
REEF has given very good general advice. I would add three things:
1. Be overly carefull. Mr. Electric will most likely just curl your hair or give you a boner if you touch the wrong thing at the wrong time, but it can also KILL you.
Not a big deal...it just needs to be treated with respect. Nothing greater than getting behind the wheel of a car.
2. A 200 amp panel is designed to handle a maximum draw of 200 amps before tripping the Main breaker. If you have 10 20 amp breakers in that panel, the only way you overload it is if all 10 of those breakers are pulling their maximum load at the same time. That would be VERY unusual. Like EVERYTHING running at MAX in your entire house.
For instance, your stove is hooked to a 50 amp breaker (probably), and you electric dryer is hooked to a 30 amp breaker. If you are running all your burners on the stove, plus your oven, and running your dryer at the same time, you're burning 80 amps. Very unlikely but possible.
Bottom line is that a typical 200 amp system is designed for you to use everything that God gave you to run, within reason. Normally we don't have everything running at the same time, so there is a lot of leeway if you use your head.
Don't run the dryer and the oven at the same time as you microwave popcorn, crank up the HT system, and do some welding in the garage.
Most home grow room situations will require no more than a couple of 20 amp breakers and a lot will require less than that.
3. I'm rambling... Your specifics require not a whole lot of juice. But it's tough to say for sure without clearer pix of your current breaker box availability. Can you get a clearer pic of the top (MAIN)breaker? On both boxes would be good.
And give some reps to REEF for getting you on the right track.
REEF has given very good general advice. I would add three things:
1. Be overly carefull. Mr. Electric will most likely just curl your hair or give you a boner if you touch the wrong thing at the wrong time, but it can also KILL you.
Not a big deal...it just needs to be treated with respect. Nothing greater than getting behind the wheel of a car.
2. A 200 amp panel is designed to handle a maximum draw of 200 amps before tripping the Main breaker. If you have 10 20 amp breakers in that panel, the only way you overload it is if all 10 of those breakers are pulling their maximum load at the same time. That would be VERY unusual. Like EVERYTHING running at MAX in your entire house.
For instance, your stove is hooked to a 50 amp breaker (probably), and you electric dryer is hooked to a 30 amp breaker. If you are running all your burners on the stove, plus your oven, and running your dryer at the same time, you're burning 80 amps. Very unlikely but possible.
Bottom line is that a typical 200 amp system is designed for you to use everything that God gave you to run, within reason. Normally we don't have everything running at the same time, so there is a lot of leeway if you use your head.
Don't run the dryer and the oven at the same time as you microwave popcorn, crank up the HT system, and do some welding in the garage.
Most home grow room situations will require no more than a couple of 20 amp breakers and a lot will require less than that.
3. I'm rambling... Your specifics require not a whole lot of juice. But it's tough to say for sure without clearer pix of your current breaker box availability. Can you get a clearer pic of the top (MAIN)breaker? On both boxes would be good.
And give some reps to REEF for getting you on the right track.
Saul Good
Active Member
Hey Erkel...I just disassembled a bunch of 'one-piece' HID lights and re-assembled them to allow for the ballast to be in a seperate 'room' with the light fixture in the grow area. Is this what you mean? If so, I'd be glad to help, but I'd need specifics about your particular unit. Let me know vat choo gott...
NewHiddenGrower
Well-Known Member
Thanks but i think my grow room located in the garage doesnt use the main breaker. It uses the smaller one
VictorVIcious
Well-Known Member
THANX FOR THE PICTURES, WE LIKE PICTURES AND DID i MENTION WE LIKE PICTURES. a PICTURE IS LIKE A THOUSAND WORDS.No i dont know anything about eletric, but im willing to learn. Im willing to listening to every little thing someone tells me.
I took some pictures, but im not sure if this is the breaker box.
Theres 2 boxes, the one on the left is the one with the switch i have to switch back on when the power goes out in my garage.
Thank you very much.
Please understand this is very important to me...
Ill send you some free clones or bud if you can help me
Now what we have here is a Main Panel and a sub panel. When they started to improve the electric service to the garage they ran out of space in the original box so they ran an extension panel to add available spaces and probably up graded the Main service to 200amp at that time. What they have done is very nice, we can work with that.
There should be a double pull double throw (DPDT) switch in your main panel labeled GARAGE. If you turn that off, you Garage sub panel should be dead. If you turn that one back on and turn off the top right switch in your sub panel your garage should be dead.
If that work we can go further. See that space that goes the opposite direction at the very top of your sub panel. You can put a new Mainswitch there, it probably will not be necessary at this point, you have lots of available Space. You can not put one there that has a higher amp rating than the panel does so you need to read what that rating is on the information card in the panel. It is probably a 100 panel.
All we need to do is run a couple of new circuit for the garage and put in a couple of new breakers. A couple of different ways you can do this, simple as a,b,c, black, white, green and sometimes d which is red. The choice would depend on the distance to the garage, more than likely because you already have a sub panel, we would just decide to skip d and install two or three or........ new 20 amp circuits.
If your still with me, turn the Garage switch off in the main panel, and take the cover off of the Garage panel, take a look around, you can follow the wires. The dipole switch will have a red wire and a black wire that is connected to the outside of the switch, these are your Hot Wires, they will supply 110 volts each or a total of 220 volts. If you follow them back to the cord or conduit those two come from you will find a white wire, that goes to ground or neutral, and either a green or a bare wire, that is you grounding wire.
If you look at the Single pull switches ( SPST), they will have a black wire connected to the outside of the switch. Follow that and you will find a white and a green or bare wire. If you can follow that from the panel, you should see it in the garage.
What we need to do is
1)Install some duplex boxes in the garage
2) wire them to the sub panel
3) Install new Breaker Switchs in the panel.
ALWAYS TURN THE SWITCH OFF FIRST.
I recommend using 12 wire and 20 amp breakers and receptacles. My reasoning is simple. If I run a 1000 watt light, that will be a 9 amp load, I will still be able to run a small appliance without overloading the circuit, no more than 80% or 16 amps of load.
If I were doing this for the first time, I would want to take a breaker out to 'See' how it goes in. Always turn off the switch first. There is a 'pry spot' at the inside edge of the breaker, take a plastic or rubber handled medium length flat screw driver and 'pry' gently toward the outside of the panel, just rock it a little to get it started. It will pop right out, the black wire will still be attached to it. What you have done is taken the switch out of the circuit. Now you can 'see' what you need to do to correct this problem. Those little round things on the side of the panel are knock out plugs, clamps hold the wire in place. always pull a little more wire through the hole than you need, 1" short....not good, cut off 6" waste.......much better. Connect you white wire, stripped back 1/2", under any available screw in the neutral bar, and attach the attach the green or bare copper wire to the grounding bar. Now attach the black wire to the breaker switch you are holding in your hand and then plug it in. Put the outside in place and push down on the front until you see it lock in place. You can safely check your work as you go. Once you have your switch in place go plug something that makes noise in the receptacle. Now turn on the garage switch in the main panel, then turn on the switch you installed. If the radio comes on your golden. Turn off the Garage switch in the main panel and continue with the rest of them.
Breaker Switches for most major manufacturers are available for less than $5.00 at the big box stores, you can often buy a 'Contractor Pack' of 10 for the cost of 5 individually. Just buy the brand for your Sub Panel. Work boxes are inexpensive, I do recommend the deep boxes, it gives you more room to work with, and more space to dissipate heat. They make work boxes for all of the applications, new work and 'old' work.
When you visit the big box stores look at the displays they have for wiring simple projects.
The 20 amp receptacles are about $2.50 more than the 15 amp, so around $3.00 a piece, I have been accused of always over supplying available power, my lights don't dim when I run my table saw. When you buy wire that you are likely to use again, its usually cheaper to have 20' more than you need then it is to have 2' less than you need.
Once you have installed a circuit, it will be like riding a bike, you won't forget how.
One more thing and then I will stop, because you are doing the work your self you will save a lot of money, use some of that to buy good electrical hand tools if you don't already have them. If will save you a lot of grief. VV
pabloesqobar
Well-Known Member
Here's my question/problem: I bought some of the 68w/2700k cfl's from home depot. I want to use them for a 12/12 from seed grow. I also bought some of the 8.5" clamp lights to use as the fixtures to screw into.
I tried it today and was unsuccessful. First, I tried screwing the bulb into the clamp light. It would start to screw in, but I could tell that the bulb was too big for the light and wasn't screwing in all the way. Next, I screwed an extender into the clamp light, and screwed the bulb into the extender. I plugged it in, it "blinked" on for a fraction of a second, and went out. I tried the same set up again with a different clamp light with the same result.
Then I took the bulb and screwed it into a hallway ceiling light fixture, but it didn't work.
Did I just blow the bulb? Do you know what kind of plug-in fixtures I can use for these bulbs? Thanks so much.
I tried it today and was unsuccessful. First, I tried screwing the bulb into the clamp light. It would start to screw in, but I could tell that the bulb was too big for the light and wasn't screwing in all the way. Next, I screwed an extender into the clamp light, and screwed the bulb into the extender. I plugged it in, it "blinked" on for a fraction of a second, and went out. I tried the same set up again with a different clamp light with the same result.
Then I took the bulb and screwed it into a hallway ceiling light fixture, but it didn't work.
Did I just blow the bulb? Do you know what kind of plug-in fixtures I can use for these bulbs? Thanks so much.
Attachments
erkelsgoo420
New Member
That's exactly what I mean. Its a floralux 250 mh 120v magnetic ballast mounted to the reflector. Ill get everything off the sticker when the lights turn on lol