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

[ScoobyDoobyDoo]

As far as I know the only panel is on the ground floor next to the electricity meter.
I only want to run 300/400w of cfl for veg. And a 600w hps for flower, and the necessary fans for each tent.
Im no electrician so I don't know if thats a lot. My main concern really is, if someone saw a cord coming from the roof into say,a bedroom socket. Well it goes without saying that it would arouse suspicion

chances are you already have electricity somewhere in the attic. usually there are lights in your attic and if you have high hats (recessed lighting) then it's run through your attic. what you want to run can all be don e with 12/2 romex and a 20amp breaker.

is there anyway for you to snake a wire down the side of the wall to the breaker panel?

 

[Closetgardner]

chances are you already have electricity somewhere in the attic. usually there are lights in your attic and if you have high hats (recessed lighting) then it's run through your attic. what you want to run can all be don e with 12/2 romex and a 20amp breaker.

is there anyway for you to snake a wire down the side of the wall to the breaker panel?

There's no lights in the attic at all man.
I've had a look and I can take a wire from the attic into the boiler cupboard, then through the floor into the cupboard (directly underneath?) where the electricity breaker/meter is located.
If you can tell me what things to buy I'll get into my nearest city over the weekend and buy the stuff.
Thanks again man

 

[ScoobyDoobyDoo]

There's no lights in the attic at all man.
I've had a look and I can take a wire from the attic into the boiler cupboard, then through the floor into the cupboard (directly underneath?) where the electricity breaker/meter is located.
If you can tell me what things to buy I'll get into my nearest city over the weekend and buy the stuff.
Thanks again man

depending on how long the total run is you should get a 25-50' roll of 10/2 romex. 2 single gang electrical boxes. 2 Lutron commercial grade 20amp duplex receptacle & faceplates. total cost should be around $50-$100 max. you will also need a 20 amp breaker. it has to be the same make and model as your existing breakers. take a picture of your electrical panel door and then a closeup of the breakers with your phone and when you go to the store just find the exact same ones.

 

[Stevie51]

Hey bricktown, im planning on growing in an attic. Instead of running an extension cord from a socket in the house, I thought about a socket in the attic.

After reading a bit I understand the socket would have to be wired into the main breaker for the house?
Any chance you could walk me through doing this? Or will to be to difficult?
The main breaker is on the ground floor of the house

I notice your location is Scotland. I hope the readers of your post realize this when responding.

 

[Closetgardner]

I notice your location is Scotland. I hope the readers of your post realize this when responding.

Yh I hope so. I never thought about that

 

[Sparkz125]

Hi there

I have a question about running a full grow off batteries...

basically as my situation stands I'm going to be moving onto a canal boat where we have power on board threw the batteries which are charged from the engine, my plan is to buy a couple (hopefully no more than 2) deep cycle batteries which are dedicated to run a set of led grow lights plus fans, I want to have the batteries to charge up as normal through the engine, which I hope means I won't have to run the engine more than the normal twice a day to top them up..

how possible does this sound and what advice can you give me as this is a must have thing if I'm living on a boat haha

hope to hear from sombody
cheers

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

The first thing you'll need to do is a load analysis to figure out how many watts your proposed system will draw. Then you'll need to figure out how many amp*hours of battery you'll need to know if it's going to be feasible. Keep in mind that you don't want to draw a deep cycle battery below 50-60% of its capacity or you'll shorten its lifespan considerably. What that means is that you'll need to install almost twice as many batteries as you calculate you'll need.
This is the single most common mistake people make in planning off-grid installations.

For reference sake, 2 deep cycle Group 31 batteries will give you an honest 100A*h when new: about the same as a pair of Trojan T6 6V batteries wired in series.

 

[Sparkz125]

So I've think I have found out a rough guide on wattage with the appliances I wish to get

budmaster 450; consumption is apparently 300w
a couple fans one for extraction and one for circulation both small low power so hopefully no more than an extra 40w I think

from this how would i work out how many amp*hours of battery I will need?

Also I gather from what you was saying that Trojan t605 6v batterys wired in series would be a better option??

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

Sorry, that should have been Trojan T105 not T6. It all comes down to costs and availability: many people go with T105s wired in series because the batteries are widely available, inexpensive and are often available as surplus from equipment where they're changed out as part of a preventative maintenance regime regardless of whether or not they're showing diminished capacity. The drawback is that a two-battery bank won't run with one battery down and the one dead (shorted, sulfated, etc) battery will quickly draw the other down as well. If you're buying new, I'd go with 2 12V batteries through an isolator and a battery switch because your system will still function, albeit at reduced capacity, on one battery.

The next thing you need to figure out is what light cycle you're going to use for veg. Because of the consumption, you may not want to go 24/0...or you may want to build your system so you can...that's up to you.
Let's assume 500W for everything. If you're running off batteries, I'd suggest PC fans exclusively for circulation: they are made for use where power supplies are limited and meant to run on 12V, so they can be powered directly off the batteries without the inverter losses that come from running an inductor (motor) off of a MSW (less expensive) inverter.

That's 500W/220V= 2.27 Amps. We now multiply that by the hours of runtime to get Amp*hours (A*h), which is why you need to decide on your light cycle. The 50 A*h of usable capacity in a 100A*h battery will give you 22 hours of run time if there are no other draws or losses. You will have a bit of loss from the inverter used to convert the DC back into AC, but even the most inexpensive Xantrex units are well over 90% (stated) efficiency.

In itself, that's not so bad: you are looking at about one group 31 battery per day of runtime before you need to recharge. It's recharging that presents a bit more of a the problem: if your charge rate is 10A @ 12V, it will take 5 hrs per day to replace the energy you use. You'll need to find out what your alternator's charging capacity is, derate that (usually by ~20%) and subtract what the rest of your electrical system uses. What's left is what you have available to charge your grow batteries...which will probably mean installing a larger (or an additional) alternator.

Some food for thought: I did a refit on an old ocean tug that was used to pull a spud barge to a job and then as crew quarters. Since the engine was being used to charge the batteries more often than for propulsion, it worked out cheaper for them to install a separate AC generator to run all the time than it was to run the engine every day to recharge batteries.

 

[Sparkz125]

Wow thanks for all the info, that has helped me a great deal to understand some of the measures to take into consideration...

I understand what you mean about the Trojans now, I probably will go with your advice and get 2 12v as your logic behind it makes more practical sense.. As for veg lighting I was thinking possibly 18/6 maybe 20/4 if it all works as good as I hope..

i was looking at alternator upgrades and after a quick research it sounds like a 70amp 12v upgrade is easily possible but I don't know what the spec of the one I have already fitted is, I might be able to use what I have but otherwise if I was to have two 150ah Trojan t1275s that would give me a total of 300ah, of which 150ah is usable without causing damage to batteries, so going by your 500w/220v for example should give me 60hrs runtime before charge is needed... By using a 70amp 12v alternator taking into mind a few things would mean it will take around 3hrs to get back to a full charge? Surely I've gone wrong somewhere it sounds a bit too efficient, not that I'll complain if it's right... Lol... And what sort of price figure comes to mind when u think of the kit needed to make a grow possible? Any ideas of an estimate?


As it stands I'm still quite new to this and all this info is going to help me prepare for this project when I move in the near future, haven't got dates yet but looking around April, so in the mean time I may have a quite a few questions to ask on here,

if anyone has any advice that comes to mind than please let me know.. Everything is helpful

thankyou

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

I couldn't begin you estimate what it would cost in the UK. Here in Canada, you'd probably be looking at $600-800 to buy the batteries, isolator, inverter, switch and cables. A basic 100A Balmar marine alternator with internal regulator will run you around $1000, plus 10-15% for an installation kit for your engine.
That's just for the boat upgrade, grow equipment is on top of that.

If you have the space, 4D and 8D batteries (~$350-500) might be a better way to go in terms of capacity, though you'll definitely need the extra alternator in that case. 8Ds typically kick out around 200-225 A*h each. They are commonly used as forklift batteries and, like T105s, may be found less expensively at auctions or disposal sales than buying new.

Good luck with your build - I'll be interested to hear how it works when you get it up and running. This is an area where manufacturers are notorious for overselling their products, so real-world experiences and results are always good to hear about. I don't get on here too often so feel free to pm me if you wish and I'll get an email.

 

[dxco]

every calculated value in this statement is wrong lol.

3AWG @ 100A breaker IS correct as you already know.
I'm just concerned that you have a grounding problem in your control panel (which is essentially a sub panel)

Quoted from the guy that knows everything:
"Just isolate the grounding (green) bar from the enclosure when you mount it and make sure to land the # 6 grounding (green) conductor between the neutral bar of the main panel and the grounding bar of the controller.
And, again:
"All your grounding (green) wires need to be on one bar that is mounted on plastic insulators so that it will not bond with the enclosure."
And you know the information is correct because he said so:
"My equipment (wire, grounding requirements) suggestions are very much correct"

Then you said:
But back to my question... if the bars on my control panel are not connected together, does it matter where i connect the neutral and ground wires? Stated another way... DO all my grounds need to be connected to one bar and the other bar just have the neutral connections for my 120 circuit?

Then I say:
The Ground bus bar definitely MUST be attached to the enclosure! If not then the metal enclosure isn't grounded and any metal raceways/conduit, boxes, fittings, etc that are attached to the enclosure and also not grounded.
This is some pretty basic stuff -and I know you were questioning the logic behind isolating your Ground bar from your panel.
The Neutral bus bar, on the other hand, MUST be isolated from your enclosure (which should now be connected to ground). I think you had also mentioned the Neutral bus bar BONDING screw - which is there ONLY for where a Neutral BOND is required in service equipment (usually your main panel, unless the BOND was made at a service disconnect or meter pack in a multi-family or multi-tenant building). A sub panel typically never has a Neutral BOND.
And as far as connecting the Neutral and Ground wires to either bar -NO, the Neutral wires go to the Neutral bus and the Ground wires to the Ground bus. Even if there are just a couple Neutral connections.

The reason for the Neutral being bonded only at ONE location is this (one big reason): We do NOT want Neutral return current flowing through conduit and other paths to ground. Say we have a circuit run with metal conduit and the Neutral connection became impaired so the current in the circuit is now running through the conduit > Now there is a loose conduit fitting inside a wall cavity > There is current flowing through the conduit so the loose fitting arcs (or sparks) when the circuit is in use > It's night time and a family is sleeping in the home at the time when the arc finally starts the wall material on fire and the family burns up in the house....
OR
A handyman comes along a spots a loose connection in some exposed conduit > He does the proactive thing and decides to fix it > When working on the energized circuit, he pulls the conduit apart and becomes part of the Neutral return circuit, a couple amps flows through his heart and kills him on the spot.
There are tons of scenarios where an improperly BONDED Neutral can cause problems -most probably not as severe as the two I listed!

Here's another scenario about a Ground Bus bar that is isolated from a sub panel enclosure:
(short story) A 10AWG wire connected to a 30-amp breaker is accidentally damaged when the cover of the panel is installed. All of the conduits connected to the panel are PVC and the branch circuits are run with Romex. The pinched wires insulation eventually gives way and now the sub panel enclosure is energized! The grower is standing on a cement floor that is wet because some water was spilled earlier while mixing some nutrient solution. The grower, wearing canvas Converse shoes, standing in the water goes to flip off a breaker in the panel and when he opens the door he is electrocuted and suffers sever nerve damage but has a full recovery after months of physical therapy. He buys the $850 panel & quits taking advise that could potentially be life threatening from people he doesn't know (even if guy has NEC table 310.16 memorized and has art. 250 in front of him while giving out advice)!
Had the enclosure been properly grounded, the fault current would have flowed through the Ground wire, back to the main panel or service disconnect where the Neutral is properly BONDED to ground. The circuit is complete and a breaker trips before any problems have a chance to arise. Nobody was hurt and the cause of the fault is identified and repaired.

If you are unsure of the grounding in your control panel, send me an email & I'm sure we can straighten it out.
DX (info@dx... )

 

[dxco]

I will say that the recommendations you gave are directly inline with what I heard on other forums. Need to use #3 thhn.

So my grounding bar on my controller panel is not bonded to the box then?
There seems to be a screw in the binding bar that serves to bind it with the panel.

Can you confirm that the ground and neutral bars are essentially the same in my controller panel? I mean I will have bare copper grounding wire coming from the grounding/neutral bar in my main panel going to the grounding bar and a #10 thhn wire going from the neutral/grounding bar in my main panel going to the neutral bar in my controller panel.

So since both bars in my controller panel are connected to the neutral/grounding bars in my panel...can I just route grounds and neutral wires to either bar in the controller panel?

Does this make sense? I'm just curious because in the main panel in my house, neutral and grounds go to the same bar.
Is that because they are bonded?

Almost done with the panel, just waiting on the delay relays from china

Oh..btw, I have to use 10 gauge wire on y plugs because I'm using 30 amp double pole breakers.

Hey legally flying man!
This statement is entirely wrong and I think you were questioning it-
A quote from the guy that knows everything:
"All your grounding (green) wires need to be on one bar that is mounted on plastic insulators so that it will not bond with the enclosure."
And you know everything he told you is correct because he says so here:
My equipment (wire, grounding requirements) suggestions are very much correct
every calculated value in this statement is wrong lol. (LOL, LOL) -Not my quote.

If you listened to this erroneous advice you have a panel with an enclosure that is not Grounded! The Ground bus most certainly MUST be attached to the enclose! The Ground bus is bolted directly to the enclosure & ALL enclosures are Grounded.
The Neutral bus must NOT be BONDED to ground at the sub panel. The Neutral BOND is at the Service Equipment (First Disconnect) ONLY. (that screw you mentioned above is the Neutral BONDING Screw and is not used for your application.
If you are unsure about the Grounding and Bonding in your control panel send me an email & I promise not to give you advise that could possibly result in life threatening conditions!

Seems like everything else is cool -The 3AWG @ 100A breaker, 6AWG Ground wire (one thing though is that your incoming (feeder circuit from main panel) Neutral cannot be smaller than the required Ground wire but can otherwise be sized to the maximum unbalanced load (which just means that the Neutral must be sized so that is somebody loaded up the "side" with the most 120v circuits to max capacity, the neutral wire can carry the load).
The 30A breaker would get your install red-flagged by any inspector because the code says that a 15A receptacle can only be connected to a 15A circuit in the case of a single recept'. Two or more 15A receptacles can be installed on a 20A circuit as with a 20A receptacle>
BUT -There is part of art 410 that deals with lighting circuits that says that UL Listed HID luminaires with mogul (or heavy duty) base can be installed on circuits up to 50 amps, using receptacles and plugs rated under 50 amps as long as the receptacle/plug are rated at least 125% or the luminaire full load rating. It goes on to say that the luminaire must be located directly below the receptacle. THis is obviously for insdustrial and commercial high-bay /low-bay lighting BUT the way it reads, as long as your ballast (UL Listed luminaire) is installed below the outlet, we can run up to 50A circuits!
I personally never go above 30A and just on a couple of my base controllers but I could go to 50A and be NEC compliant but only in a commercial setting. Another thing people don't ever talk about is that luminaires above 125v are not allowed to be installed in dwellings, hotel rooms, boarding houses, etc. So any lights running @240v are not code compliant anyway (a good comeback when some jerk starts knitpicking about NEC compliance). -That being said, I would not encourage you to run anything other than HID lighting on your 30A circuit(s). AND 4x 1000's will not trip a 20A 240v circuit even though you are running at 90% capacity. We have been using that 5A per 1Kw for years. If you were in the desert & the lights were on a 150ft run of wire & the electrical panel was FULL of breakers running at 90% continuously, you would probably have a tripping issue. It's called "nuisance tripping" and it is caused by the thermal mechanism of the thermal-magnetic breaker over heating (due to heat riding on the wire and ambient temp and the temp of other devices in the panel, etc). Nuisance tripping is more common when the wire runs are long, so a control panel with 24" between the breaker and receptacle rarely has this problem when running above 80% of the circuit capacity.
I've never understood why they didn't make 20A breakers capable of 20A continuously, etc. There are also a lot of breakers and devices that are 100% rated but they are mostly 250 amps and larger (like huge hydraulic 10,000 amp breakers).
DX (info@ dx..... )

 

[BenFranklin]

So glad I am not an electrician..... I'd have fried myself a long time ago, pretty sure. Well.. not that I'm not fried right now! =P hehehe...

Even though my Avatar(which is one of my favorite people in history) did discover electricity.... He nearly killed himself and the boy he got to help him... See, it's an omen.

 

[mch]

Hi there fellow RIU'ers... Over and over again I continualy see new threads and posts about electrical work question and thought I would post a couple threads to help you guys the same way all of you who have done such a great job having helped me... So, Do you have a grow room question about how to wire something up, or what are the safest ways of doing things? The most important one I see alot is people running lights and fans off power chords... I have wired my own grow room and will post an example of my work.

Please, if you have any questions and are unsure of what to do or if what you are doing is safe, PLEASE! ask me first if you are even a tad bit unsure. I would hate to hear anyone have an electrical fire because they didn't quite know what they were doing when all they needed to do was to ask a couple of questions... I will do my best to point you in the right direction.

If you want to do some wiring your self, I will either let you know if your project is too complicated if your not handy with electrical, or, IF YOU ASK, I will walk you thru your project step by step.

So please, ASK AWAY!!!

You can post questions here but you may not get your question answerd on the thread, best way to go about it is PM me. You will forsure get a response back.

PS Even if you have basic around the home electrical questions, shoot em my way.

 

[mch]

I am constructing my 12x12x12 room in my shop. I have a 200 amp dedicated panel running 90 feet on direct burial 4 wire to a 50 amp subpanel that was for my hot tub. I want to run another 90 feet to my shop just for my room. Can i go from 4 wire DB to 3wire DB to the shop? If so how do i wire them together? Thanks , Mike

 

[Stevie51]

You have a 200 amp dedicated panel? What is this panel "dedicated" to? Is it dedicated to a residential home with 240/120 volts service? Or is it dedicated to a shop with 240/120 volts service? Or is it dedicated to supplying 240/120 volts service to both your home and shop (assuming both are separate building structures)? How big is this shop and where is it located, and what are you using for electricity to your shop now?

 

[CaliWorthington]

Greetings, I need to wire up an Intermatic T101 timer for a custom LED rig. The LED system is split into 2 halves, each half pulls a little over 1,200 watts at 10.5 Amps and has it's own AC cable. 120V.

I'm currently running half the system in a bedroom. AC outlets in the room are fed from the main house breaker. My plan was to remove an AC outlet and wire the timer in there, then run a few feet of 10-2 Romex from the timer through some conduit to a wall mounted box with an AC duplex outlet.

Is this the right way to do it, or is there some reason I need to put in a junction box or something?

A PVC 1-gang box and PVC conduit looked easiest for my first go around, but then I read that PVC conduit requires a separate ground. I'm not sure what they mean by that, obviously Romex has a ground wire.

So if grounding will be a hassle with PVC, I could use Liquid-Tight flexible non-metallic conduit instead. I like the connectors it uses, and noticed Home Depot uses it for their own in-store installations.

Or there's metallic conduit, which shields EMF better. I've heard bending the Electric Metallic Tube conduit is actually fun for some people.

Basically I just want to know if my timer wiring plan is sound or not, and maybe someone knows about that PVC conduit separate ground wire thing. Thanks!

 

[CaliWorthington]

I was wrong, the room is fed from a 20A breaker after all. RIU won't let me edit my post above, sorry for the mistake. So without a sub panel, I won't run the other half of the LED system in there. I'll save that for when I build a room from scratch or get a big tent.

I'm still wondering if it's OK to wire that timer in instead of an outlet though, if I don't exceed 12 Amps.

I decided to stick with PVC for the conduit. However, you are not supposed to run Romex through conduit, so I got 3 separate thhn stranded 10 gauge wires instead.

I'm not proceeding with any of this until I get thumbs up or down. I might need to have a sub panel or junction box installed.

 

[CaliWorthington]

The AC outlets are being used for electricity distribution, so in order to maintain continuity, I will install a junction box in the wall and run to the timer from there.