Planning to setup 4 lights, how do I make sure I will be able to power them all?

I am planning to setup a grow room using three 1000w hps and one 600w for vegging. How do I verify ahead of time that the outlets in the room can handle them? They are all those newer electronic ballasts. Also keeping in mind pumps, fans, blowers, meters and monitors will also be using the same power.

I have little to no electrical knowledge, so just looking for some pointers and stuff to consider or check for my situation. thanks in advance!

No input?

I just want to make sure that if I power up all 4 lights and the other equipment that I won't blow anything or damage anything.

thnx again....

nubgrwr said:

No input?

I just want to make sure that if I power up all 4 lights and the other equipment that I won't blow anything or damage anything.

thnx again....

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Im not very knowledgeable in the field either but have been researching the same so basically what ive learned is Each light has a certain AMP rating and that relates to your breaker that its plugged in to

typacilly your house breaker is 15amps if your ballast are like mine thats near what they are (mine are 12 i think) so that means you cant plug 2 into the same breaker
and also from what i understand you cant just replace the breaker with a higher 40amp breaker like whats in your kitchen or something so what i say you do is hire an electrician to wire a whole new breaker box in your room that way you dont create a fire hazard for yourself because remember just cause it works doesnt mean its not a hazard

you need to make sure you have enough amps in the circuit to power all the lights. basically the way it works is amps x volts = watts
so if you have a 120v circut to achieve 1000 watts it would need to run 8.6 amps. But ballasts don't just suck the energy they turn into DC, they also use some residual, and that amount depends on the type of ballast. Check the ballasts to see how many amps they draw. also, find the circuit breaker board for your house, and figure out which circuit the room you want to use is on... that breaker will tell you how many AMPs it is, usually a room has 15-30 amp breakers. if you exceed the amount of amps the breaker can support, it will flip, causing power to go out. most importantly, be safe, and NEVER exceed the circuits amps.

deester said:

Im not very knowledgeable in the field either but have been researching the same so basically what ive learned is Each light has a certain AMP rating and that relates to your breaker that its plugged in to

typacilly your house breaker is 15amps if your ballast are like mine thats near what they are (mine are 12 i think) so that means you cant plug 2 into the same breaker
and also from what i understand you cant just replace the breaker with a higher 40amp breaker like whats in your kitchen or something so what i say you do is hire an electrician to wire a whole new breaker box in your room that way you dont create a fire hazard for yourself because remember just cause it works doesnt mean its not a hazard

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How do I check the amps to different parts of the house? I know where the breaker box is, but when you say the house breaker and differentiate from the kitchen breaker, I'm confused with the use of the term. So if I were to have a breaker box wired in my grow room, would it require something addition being run through the house from the breaker box, or something that could just be installed to where the power is accessed from the room?

the box in your house should be full of switches, each switch will have a series of plugs associated with the corresponding switch. each switch can handle only a certain amount of amps.... the kitchen switch is usually the biggest main switch, unless you have electric heating. it's usually a 45amp breaker, for the stove. basicall waht i would do, is turn off all the switches except the kitchen switch, and turn one on at a time, untill you can map out each plug-in in relation to its breaker switch. Some, are already mapped for you.
honestly bro, if you dont understand this simple aspect of electricity in the home, i would stay far away from anything high powered and would stick with a small grow until you have gained the appropriate knowledge. Get some books from the library about electricity and wiring in the home. If you don't want to take the time to do this important aspect of studying, i suggest you try a different hobby, like knitting!

im no electrician, but 3600 watts plus ballasts....
1. increase of about 60 dollars to your electrical bill per month
2. will definitly flip the breaker
and 3. like btown buds said, 8.6 amps each. multiply that by 3.6 and its right around 30 amps. so just lights alone, not including the added wattage the ballast uses, your running about maximum power through one wire.

one more thing, some breakers are wired to 3 or 4 outlets, pluslight fixtures such as a ceiling fan. so basiccally u can use 30 amps of power per room in your house. i dont mean o be negative but thirty six hundred watts seems like alot unless were talking about a commercial business, or a large warehouse.
in my opinion, your best bet is to have multiple grow areas at different parts of your house with 1 light in each.
im just trying to give you a safer idea. electrical fires are 2nd most common right after grease fires in my area. (probably cause everyonewho has a panof grease catch fire, they throw water on it. [hahhahah])

just my 2 cents.
be safe my friend.

/\ he has a good idea, with the different lights in different rooms. Unless you wanna hire an electrician, and tell him you want a 240 circuit cause you want to run a welder. but that sort of electrical upgrade can cost a lot I'm sure.

Btownbud said:

the box in your house should be full of switches, each switch will have a series of plugs associated with the corresponding switch. each switch can handle only a certain amount of amps.... the kitchen switch is usually the biggest main switch, unless you have electric heating. it's usually a 45amp breaker, for the stove. basicall waht i would do, is turn off all the switches except the kitchen switch, and turn one on at a time, untill you can map out each plug-in in relation to its breaker switch. Some, are already mapped for you.
honestly bro, if you dont understand this simple aspect of electricity in the home, i would stay far away from anything high powered and would stick with a small grow until you have gained the appropriate knowledge. Get some books from the library about electricity and wiring in the home. If you don't want to take the time to do this important aspect of studying, i suggest you try a different hobby, like knitting!

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knitting is fun!!!
haha. just kidding. growing dank buds is more fun.

3600w only $60 increase. My friends two 600 watters raised it $120+

it depends on the ballast type.. and how much you pay for power. im lucky, and i get power very cheap, 5 cents a kilowatt hour... most places are double that.
1 kw/h is equal to 1000w burning for one hour, so if you where to keep 3600w on for 12 hours a day you'd pay $64.80 at 5 cents a KW/h per month.
but if your rate is 12 cents, like many, many places in the united states, you'd pay 155.52$ for the same amount of power! but remember, old magnetic plaast draw an excess of up to 200watts or more sometimes. A nice, high end, digital ballast will only draw something like 20watts excess, not to mention the run a lot cooler, longer and most digi ballasts can use both MH and HPS with no conversion needed. With a hotter running ballast you will need to spends more on cooling to cool the room. Never buy a cheap mag ballast... i dont know why they even still sell those pieces of dangerous shit. I run lumatek ballasts, they kick fucking ass.

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Ok, thank you all for your responses and input, I'm sorry if I sound like an idiot when asking the questions. I don't think it's beyond my scope to understand, it's just that I've never done anything that has required me to be aware of the total amps I'm running through a line. Obviously it was stupid of me to assume I wouldn't have to research that aspect unless I had something like 10 lights going. Anyway the first response by deester left me still a little confused, nothing against his reply, he stated he's just researching the information as well. I understand it much more after the rest of the replies which helped guide me to figure out what I need to know. Btownbud, your replies were very helpful, thank you.

basicall waht i would do, is turn off all the switches except the kitchen switch, and turn one on at a time, untill you can map out each plug-in in relation to its breaker switch. Some, are already mapped for you.


I did this, and figured out which outlets and house lights correspond to which breaker in the box. I thought each breaker would be grouped with all the outlets in one room, but it turns out my living room has one outlet that is shared with one outlet in the grow room. Another outlet in the grow room is shared with 2 bathrooms. The third outlet in the grow room I was not able to get to. The other bedrooms outlets are split as well. I don't know if this is normal for them to be spread around different rooms like that or not. I didn't actually map them out yet, flipped them one at a time, and checked outlets that are in important spots. Tomorrow I am going to actually find every outlet in the house minus the kitchen and garage and figure which outlets are linked to which breaker.

Also I found that I do have a 240v line that runs to the garage. I'm not using it at all and know someone I can hire to run that to the bedroom. So that is an option, but a bit costly, I would also have to purchase a timer box, something like this http://www.botanical.com/hydro/acces...rs/timers.html the 30 Amp Timer Box, about halfway down that page.


Attachment 1226124
This will solve all my problems if I end up running all the lights.

Now another point brought up was the cost of electricity. After it was brought up in this thread, I found out about how my electric company charges here. I'm being told that I have a base amount of kwh a day, if I go over that base, then my price per kwh jumps up dramatically. Then a certain percentage over that, I get bumped to another tier and get charged ridiculous amounts per kwh. Taking that into consideration, I might just run two 1000w for flowering, and get some fluoros for vegging and clones.

So in my breaker box, the ones that control the outlets and some lights in the house, excluding the kitchen and garage are all 15 or 20. Since each room has 2-3 different lines in it, I figure I could plug the lights into separate outlets, if I reduce it to two 1000w lights.

deester said:

Im not very knowledgeable in the field either ..... also from what i understand you cant just replace the breaker with a higher 40amp breaker like whats in your kitchen or something

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never replace a breaker with one rated higher,the size of the breaker is related to the size of the wire in the circuit and is meant to prevent a fire.by allowing a larger amount of current to flow, the wire will heat up and cause a fire.
also when researching on this forum,be aware some people are in UK & they use a different system.230 VAC instead of 115 vac and set up breakers differently
sounds like you are on the right track, remember when adding up current draw on each breaker,include things that are used occasionally, hair dryers in bathroom,vacum cleaner,ect.