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

True that about the kitchen. I was recently rewiring my rental house. God, is that fun. Anyways I was wondering why kitchen always run 12 gauge on 20 amp breakers. My toaster alone pulls 7 amps!!

I should put some plant under it. Lol

legallyflying said:

True that about the kitchen. I was recently rewiring my rental house. God, is that fun. Anyways I was wondering why kitchen always run 12 gauge on 20 amp breakers. My toaster alone pulls 7 amps!!

I should put some plant under it. Lol

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LOL!

To be honest, I personally would never run a 20A with anything higher than a 12 gauge, and in fact, I'd always use a different colour (usually yellow) for any 20A circuits so they are easily identified.

For the kitchen, the requirements are even more stringent... each circuit connects to only half of each outlet (along the counter top). This is so if you are growing under your toaster connected to the top socket in an outlet, the bottom outlet is on another circuit entirely so you can actually veg with one toaster and flower with the other, all connected to the same physical outlet

-spek

bricktown73 said:

This doesn't really apply to AC current for your project. In theory you would be wiring this in series, just wire the black to the black, white to the white, and if there is a green or just naked wire: green/naked to green/naked. And that is it.

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Nope!!! The sockets are not wired in series. They are wired in parallel. You would only wire medium base (or mogul base ) sockets in series if the voltage being applied to the lighting circuit was much higher than the voltage rating of the lamp. For example: when you see 2 incandescent medium base 120 volt/ 100 watt light bulbs wired in series with a 277volt circuit in a temporary construction lighting scenario ( which I've done a 1000 times). The light burns a bit hotter and the bulb burns out a little faster because the voltage is still a bit too high, but it works for temp lighting. Similar scenarios can be found in subway tunnels under construction ( there will be 5 bulbs wired in series in that case). If you wired any amount of standard 120 volt CFl bulb sockets in series on a 120 volt circuit it just wouldn't work or you would most probably fry them due to a high current spike to make up for the amount of reduced voltage in your misplaced series circuit. What I find strange about your advice is that this was the very first question you answered on this extremely long thread ( and a very simple one mind you, I'm talking first week on the job apprentice knowledge) and you failed epically. Sorry, bad electrical advice can cause real fires so I hope you understand the flame.

Hi There everyone

It's my first real grow and I'm totally stuck.
I have vegged my babies under CFL's for awhile so I went out and bought a 400W HPS bulb, ballast, ignighter and capacitor and wire of coarse.
My ballast has 5 input/output terminals, the ignighter has 3 and the capacitor has 2, the light socket has 2 and they are unmarked, so assuming here that the terminals on the socket don't matter much. I have wired the components like the diagram below says so but when I turn on my 220V plug, the ballast/transformer just makes a noise and my bulb stays off. I also don't have any of the white and black or marked wires, I had to supply all of my own. I might have the ports wrong or something? PLEASE HELP.... I included some close up images of the ballast and the ignighter too. hope it helps....

I would love any advice with regards to wiring this thing.
Fowlio.

Here is a pic of the wiring, the RED big wire on the right in the picture is the wire leading to the light socket and the WHITE big one on the right leads to the power, hope it helps :}

My trailer has a 100 amp main. If the room is on, the laundry has to wait because it will shut down the whole house. Thats not so bad, I run my lights at night. Problem is, I want to add a couple lights and fans in the future, and it's pretty obvious that the house doesn't have the capacity for it.

Is there a way to get more power than I have available currently?

You have to install a larger service panel. Not to be a dick, but since your asking that question it is beyond your level of experience.

However, I have an 18k room that draws 95 amps total with everything running. (10 amp dehu)

That space is 27 x 27 x 8. Much larger than a trailer. You can't possibly be getting close to that total amp draw. Not even half. Your likely just popping a single circuit.

I know enough about things to know you aren't being a dick, no worries.

It's the main that keeps popping.

I know the dryer is on 2, 20 amp breakers. The room is a 400w hps, a 525w. flouro, a half dozen computer fans, a 500cfm charcoal fan, and 3, 12" fans. I would like to swap the floro for a 400mh, and go to a pair of 600hps, and add a couple more inline ~500cfm fans. Will the trailer handle it?

ProdigalSun said:

I know the dryer is on 2, 20 amp breakers. The room is a 400w hps, a 525w. flouro, a half dozen computer fans, a 500cfm charcoal fan, and 3, 12" fans. I would like to swap the floro for a 400mh, and go to a pair of 600hps, and add a couple more inline ~500cfm fans. Will the trailer handle it?

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yes. as long as the wiring isnt shotty you should be able to pull about4 k in power total. anymore and i wouldnt risk it. also you will probably need an electrician to pull in a string of 220 to keep everything safe fro overload. i wouldnt risk putting more than you already have thru the existing wiring. fire hazard if its an older trailer and everything isnt up to code.

ProdigalSun said:

I know the dryer is on 2, 20 amp breakers. The room is a 400w hps, a 525w. flouro, a half dozen computer fans, a 500cfm charcoal fan, and 3, 12" fans. I would like to swap the floro for a 400mh, and go to a pair of 600hps, and add a couple more inline ~500cfm fans. Will the trailer handle it?

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and by 12 inch fans you mean wall or floor fans right?

wheels619 said:

and by 12 inch fans you mean wall or floor fans right?

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More of a desk fan.

Careful you don't pull too much juice to your trailer. It may attract tornadoes. If your not in a trailer park your probably safe though.

Others can confirm but it really sounds like you need to replace that main 100 breaker. No way it should be popping. They do wear out and can get trigger happy

hello cannabros i'm having a problem, i went to plug in my 1ooo watt mh light and it would not fully turn on, it only had a little blue light close to the socket. it was on for awhile and nothing. whats going on any help plz.

You need to try and supply more info so that people can reply accurately :} pics, ballast type, power input, ratings etc

I would like to start off by thanking the people who take the time out of their lives to help the folks such as myself on this and other forums, as I have learned a lot from reading in these boards and this is my first post and first project and im excited to get started!!

I would like to tackle the electrical side my new room builds so we can plan around the available resources, be safe and on code. I would like to try and do my own install of a whatever size subpanel is necessary for my projects which I estimated at around 80A. We have a good size budget and do not wanna cut any corners but we want to work efficiently without the waste of resources if I can get the proper permits do it myself.

I have two separate houses and rooms to do the electrical work on and once i get the pertinent photos I will post them on separate threads. Here is the first room/house and will post next room/house in another thread.

The room is almost halved and divided at the heater/waterheater in two sections which i was planing on dividing with drywall if necessary, the larger side of 16X12X8 for flowering/veg and 16x7x8 for Moms/clones. The main electrical box with a 150A rating is attached outside of the same basement room right outside the window in the photo straight across the heater. There appears to be two empty pole breaker switches at the bottom slots of the box. There is also water and drain on the adjacent wall of the fusebox by the water/heater units.

We just bought a current culture UC6XXL13 that we can expand up to 10 units but we will plan around six for this room for now and expand as much as the space and electrical allows according to your recommendations without trying to replace main breaker box etc. I would like to use a chiller and inline fans instead of an ac to cool the room/lights if possible. I can even use the existing heater power/outlet and ducting to whatever means necessary and use the heater's powersource since we wont be using the heater over the summer.

We have yet decided on vertical/tree or scrog/hortizontal set up, which ever one will work best to maximize plant yield due to legal limits and cooling requirements. I would like to run 6-10 1000w or 600w HPS bulbs in the flower room depending on what I can get away with in the electrical department.


My questions would be, if you had this room what would you do with it with my current setup, electrical and a very forgiving budget $15,000-$20,000. If you could walk me through the steps and materials that I will need to complete the electrical job and get started on my journey and writing first journal on the rollitup!!!

I have ordered the following seed collection to start my plants as soon as the room is ready. HERO Blue Monster Holk and Diesel Girl, PYRAMID Tutankhamon, Kaliman Nitro X and Cheese #1, Grandady Purp OG Kush and kEns Kush and CBD Crew Skunk Haze. I hope that will be a good start.

Please pardon if I missed any information on here im running back and forth from my properties trying to get things cleaned up and ready to go, please ask me anything if you need any other information about the set up. Thanks a million!

First and foremost... Do you have a fluke tester? You should get the fluke that has a u-shaped recess at the top. Forgot what model number it is. Ill post that in a few minutes. You need that to determine how high of a current demand is on your panel gut if a certain amount of appliances that are likely to be on all at the same time would demand. For example, there is probably an extremely small chance that everything that is being fed by the 150amp/220V single-phase(2-pole) main breaker will ever be on at the same time, but there is a chance that you could have the cooktop going at the same time as the dryer and various 220 V air conditioning equipment. That would require a lot of current. You have a nice 150 amp main but make sure the wire that feeds the meter is capable of supplying that much current on each phase ( a and b). The allowable capacity is 120 amps on each phase bus ( there are 2 of them ) of your panel. According to Table 310.17 (75 degree Celsius column) of the NEC your utility overhead service lateral ( wires coming from the utility) would need to be #4 AWG if copper ( which is almost never the case, they almost always use aluminum wire) and #3 aluminum would do close to that much (115 amps for each phase )and #2 aluminum would be the minimum size overhead service lateral to feed that panel with that 150 amp main breaker . The reason why I want you to make sure the utility is supplying a service lateral large enough is because it is very common for a main breaker to be sized larger than what the utility wire at the service point ( point where utility splices to the wire coming from your 2" rigid service mast ( the mast is attached to the hub at the top of the meter). It's not always easy to identify the size of wire being supplied by the utility because you need to look up top at the top of your mast to do that and need experience in identifying the different aluminum wire gauges by eye. Get an electrician friend to do that for you in person. Chances are the sun has already obscured any legible markings that could have been on the wire ( even if you grab an extension ladder and put it on the side of your house to observe the three splices up top it's not always easy to tell). If you have #2 aluminum you could use that panel to its full .8 x 150A =120A per phase capacity but chances are you may not need that much and the current carrying capacity of what is likely to be an undersized service lateral to main breaker relationship will be ok for your calculated load.That load will be the existing max likely load simultaneously tapping the bus plus all the garden appliances that are likely to be on all at the same time. Let me come back in a few minutes to tell you 1.) Which Fluke to buy [its about 100bucks, stay tuned for that] 2.) How to use that tester to calculate your existing load plus the new loads you intend to add. These are the first 2 steps we will take and afterward we will try to confirm the size of the service lateral.Lets not also forget that we need to make sure you put just about the same amount of "likely to be simultaneously on at the same time" appliance loads on each phase bus ( a and b) or in other words we need to balance the load between phases in such a way that it will be balanced not only in theory but also in real life when all of those simultaneous loads are on. One step at a time and we will get there...

The tester you need is the Fluke T5-600. I found it for 90 plus shipping when I keyword searched. You get that tester and a pair of Klein lineman pliers and ill have you doing electrical troubleshooting side jobs by the time you're done wiring up your place. I also can help you design a system that will get you at least .73 gpw (og or sour strains)on a grand scale grow ( meaning 7200 watts of flowering or more) a la dwc with zero media. That means no rock wool or hydroton in flowering or veg stage, absolute water culture with nothing in between and definitely no net pots neccessary. No Sheetrock neccessary for your walls either. Also no need to divert from your current culture system. The current culture concept works so well with no media and nothing but two double layered disks of 3/4" Mylar coated white polystyrene foam as a plant holding collar. Lets get these rooms built. Everyone on RIU!!! Lets help this guy. He's willing to go all out with a large space. All RIU experts have a chance to use this guys space as the ultimate canvas . I'm excited! P.S Check to make sure you have a #6 awg copper or # 8 awg main water grounding conductor attached between the neutral bar of the main panel and a ground clamp attached to your water main before the main water valve. Sometimes the connection goes between the water main ( before the valve) and a lug on the panel enclosure and that's ok so long as there is a bonding (grounding conductor) jumper between the enclosure and the neutral bar. That factory installed panel to neutral bar jumper is sometimes in the form of a flat bus.The bonding jumper between the panel enclosure and neutral bar is usually done at the factory. Always good to confirm that your house panel main has a continuos bonding jumper between the water main and the neutral bar ( you will use the fluke to test for that continuity and you will also be able to read how many ohms of resistance is between the water ground clamp and the neutral bar (no more than 25 ohms resistance on the readout when testing for continuity with the red and black leads of the tester . If you read higher that means you probably have a loose water grounding clamp either where the clamp jaw meets the water pipe or the screw that holds the copper lug[which in turn connects the copper grounding conductor to the clamp] on the clamp is loose. You also want a ground rod buried about 8 feet down into your basement with an attached rod clamp squeezing down on at least a #8 awg (if insulated) or #6 awg (if bare copper) ran to the neutral bar or panel enclosure if the neutral is already bonded to the panel enclosure. There are other aspects of bonding pertaining to the connection between the meter and the panel (before the main breaker) but we'll confirm that side of your bonding later. One step at a time...

Thank you so much for the detailed reply i found the exact tester and pliers you wrote about online. I can go pick up the tools right down the street from the Homedepot/Lowes if they have them in stock in denver and get the information you requested up quicker.

• I also can help you design a system that will get you at least .73 gpw (og or sour strains)on a grand scale grow ( meaning 7200 watts of flowering or more) a la dwc with zero media. That means no rock wool or hydroton in flowering or veg stage, absolute water culture with nothing in between and definitely no net pots neccessary. No Sheetrock neccessary for your walls either.​
  
  
  
  

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Im really interested in hearing about this method that you spoke of with no net pots as I was about to order 50 or so of the 8" lid pots for the other spot which I can have 24 plants flowering and whatever lighting the service can support. I also ordered 20 Eye Hortilux 1000w super hps and im looking at the ballasts that I should get and I really like the idea of a timer in the ballast such as Solistek matrix or Digital sun programmable ballast but im not sure the timer and other features outweigh the benefits on my first run and some basic digital ballast. I would love to buy 10-15 if I can find the right price and be able to use that power in the rooms but no seller that I have contacted so far has the quantities of the matrix ballast in stock. I did however find the solistek regular dimmable ballast for $170-180.

• The current culture concept works so well with no media and nothing but two double layered disks of 3/4" Mylar coated white polystyrene foam as a plant holding collar​
  
  
  
  

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Please tell me about this method as i have been reading a bit about the use of "styrofoam" for medium. I did get a bunch of rapid rooters that I just received.

I have been trying to prepare for handling the seed coming from over seas and wanna make sure I dont stress the plants at all and if possible would love to seed/veg/flower in the system or in the same conditions outside of the loop to facilitate the transfer. Any input is greatly welcomed.

I am in the process of writing a very detailed reply to answer these questions. Stay tuned...