Not enough amps? or HPS bulbs bad? New set up Electrician help would be NICE :)

I have (2) 1000w hps de fixtures in a room and in the room is rated 15amps and there are 3 outlets. (dont know if its 15amp for 3 outlets or 15amps per outlet)

However i am only using two 600w (reduced)hps and an 8" inline.
Total watts is 1380w. The room is 1800watts max ran at 80% which is 1440.
I should still have enough power to use it.

Anyways my problem is that i want to use two de fixtures but one of them keeps turning off by itself. So fixture 1 and 2 are both on. Few minutes later fixture1 turns off. I replug fixture1 then fixture2 turns off after 5minutes. I'm assuming i should go change the 15amp breaker to a 20amp.
(NOTE) if this doesnt work then my best bet would to be setting up a new 30amp gauge by going under crawling under the house.

Originally I wanted two run four w de hoods. When i sat up 4 de fixtures and plugged in all four lights. Only two turned on, and the third one that was BARELY lit. It only loaded the blue spectrum when u first start the hps and its warming up. Well then third one doesnt warm up to full hps spectrum (looks more like MH spectrum tbh). The fourth one doesnt work at all.

Any help is welcomed thanks guys.

each 1000w ballast draws 8.33 amps. 12 amps max on a 15 amp curcuit

Dont put a 20 amp breaker on a 15 amp feed as the wire gauge is 14 and cant handle 20 amps, you need 12 gauge wire for that. you can easily burn down a house like that

and you should replace your breaker since it didn't trip with three lights drawing juice lol

What some people do is change the feed from 120 v to 240 volt but maintain the same amperage. This requires making sure there is nothing else on that circuit that would be damaged by 240 volt (ceiling fans, lighting, whatever...) Then you have to isolate the neutral for that feed and mark it as a hot leg, and using a double pole breaker you trun that neutral into a hot leg. now you have a 240 volt feed to the wall outlets. The outlets should be changed to 240 volt 15 amp receptacles to ensure you don't plug a 120 v device in there.

A circuit breaker will usually pop at just over 80% of it's rated amperage. So a 15 amp feed can only reliably handle a max of 12 amps.

Hope this helps, hire an electrician and just pull a proper feed for lighting.

Best bet, hire an electrician to run a 30 amp 240 volt "dryer outlet" for a kiln you are buying for your ceramic pottery hobby. lol

if your wanting to run four 1000watt lights . run a new 240 volt line.. that will drop your amps down to a little over 4 amps. 1000w divided by 240 =4.12 amps. then run your fans and the rest off the 110volt line you already have. shouldnt cost much as long as ya dont have to run it to far.

ps. i did have a ballast that would shut of and on by itsself. changed the bulb out and it worked fine. not saying this is whats happening, just something to ponder on

If you run a 30 amp dryer outlet you can just plug a 30 amp 240 volt lighting controller into that, you will need to get a dryer cord from the hardware store to wire into the controller. Like a titan helios 11 - 4 light controller. You don't need a neutral for this type of feed so 10-2 wire is what you need and a double pole 30 amp breaker for your panel.

Aldeez,
This is the one area that you shouldn't skimp on. Fire and equipment damage can really fuck with you.

If you are limited on available electricity...you can stagger your light start up. There's an electrical surge with HID start-up and if you use different timers and slightly different times...you can minize issues related to several lamps starting at once...
JD

PS My room looks like frankenstein's lab. I have 240v and 4 20 amp lines

JohnDee said:

PS My room looks like frankenstein's lab. I have 240v and 4 20 amp lines

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I hear ya there. Here is my 125 amp whole grow feed. lol

Renfro said:

I hear ya there. Here is my 125 amp whole grow feed. lol

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Wow...now I'm jealous. My place is old but has GE breakers (no fuses). I pulled the line from an electric range and ran that to the growroom. I prefer cooking with gas anyway.


My neighbor was parting out a travel trailer which luckily had a small GE box which got mounted as a sub box.. I run a 650w LED, two 315w cmh, and an electric heater...of course plus fans and accessory items. I could double my lights easy but just don't need to.
JD

Yeah I had to convert my range to gas and my dryer to gas so I could free up amps off the main panel. That subpanel is a 125 amp run from the main panel upstairs.

With my AC units and lights plus veg I had to flip my flowering and make two rooms. lol Now my max draw is about 86 amps when the veg lights are one.

Renfro said:

Yeah I had to convert my range to gas and my dryer to gas so I could free up amps off the main panel. That subpanel is a 125 amp run from the main panel upstairs.

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Another thing I did was to put a timer on my water heater. Comes on at 0600 and is ready for a shower when I get up. Still enough warm water to wash dishes etc later in the day..
JD

JohnDee said:

Another thing I did was to put a timer on my water heater. Comes on at 0600 and is ready for a shower when I get up. Still enough warm water to wash dishes etc later in the day..
JD

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Right on man. My water heater is a on demand tankless natural gas water heater so I never run out of hot water.

Renfro said:

If you run a 30 amp dryer outlet you can just plug a 30 amp 240 volt lighting controller into that, you will need to get a dryer cord from the hardware store to wire into the controller. Like a titan helios 11 - 4 light controller. You don't need a neutral for this type of feed so 10-2 wire is what you need and a double pole 30 amp breaker for your panel.

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Yeah this was pretty much the best option i can go with.

Tomba said:

and you should replace your breaker since it didn't trip with three lights drawing juice lol

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Even if the lights were all reduced to 600w from 1000w?

JohnDee said:

Aldeez,
This is the one area that you shouldn't skimp on. Fire and equipment damage can really fuck with you.

If you are limited on available electricity...you can stagger your light start up. There's an electrical surge with HID start-up and if you use different timers and slightly different times...you can minize issues related to several lamps starting at once...
JD

PS My room looks like frankenstein's lab. I have 240v and 4 20 amp lines

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Hmmmm. Okay so lets say, i have a 11x9.5ft room. What would you run to fit everything under 15amps? 1200watts of hps and 180w of fanfilter or 4x315w cmh and fan filter?

aldeeznutz said:

Yeah this was pretty much the best option i can go with.



Even if the lights were all reduced to 600w from 1000w?

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600 x 3 = 1800 watts.

1800 watts divided by 120 volts = 15 amps

A 15 amp breaker should have popped as it should never allow a constant draw of 15 amps.

aldeeznutz said:

Hmmmm. Okay so lets say, i have a 11x9.5ft room. What would you run to fit everything under 15amps? 1200watts of hps and 180w of fanfilter or 4x315w cmh and fan filter?

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With a 15 amp 120 volt feed you are limited to one 1000 watter at 8.33 amps. That leaves 3.667 amps of usable power for fans and shit. You could run two 600 watters at 10 amps and have 2 amps left over for fans and shit.

Basically a 4 x 4 tent is what you can run on a 15 amp 120v feed and thats assuming you can get all the other loads under 3.67 amps.