lazaah
Well-Known Member
Hooraa! I've been watching this go down with anticipation. Well done!
Blew my breaker, plug grounded?
- Thread starter Moabfighter
- Start date
Shit man hard lesson learned. Anytime a breaker flips or fries safely, just count your stars . That shit saved your ass...
thst being said def research basic electrical...
good growers will put a whole new pannel in orna seperate circuit... especially in the US , where running 4 legs / 240v has clear efficiency benifits...
learn and be safe man.. good luck..
this is why i do my own damn wirring.. it may be daunting at first butonce you get the basics you can make it safer foryou and everyone...
always ground your equipment ina grow! If its two prongs adapt it to three and ground to somethinf that wont zap your ass...
also ground faultoutlets are a god send... i think they are becoming code in many places ... but if u dont use gfc . Switch to them now...
Another thing is neber upgrade your circuit breaker to a larger one without for sure knowing the wirring amd outlets are code or better...
just dropping general tips for anyone.
peace be safe.
thst being said def research basic electrical...
good growers will put a whole new pannel in orna seperate circuit... especially in the US , where running 4 legs / 240v has clear efficiency benifits...
learn and be safe man.. good luck..
this is why i do my own damn wirring.. it may be daunting at first butonce you get the basics you can make it safer foryou and everyone...
always ground your equipment ina grow! If its two prongs adapt it to three and ground to somethinf that wont zap your ass...
also ground faultoutlets are a god send... i think they are becoming code in many places ... but if u dont use gfc . Switch to them now...
Another thing is neber upgrade your circuit breaker to a larger one without for sure knowing the wirring amd outlets are code or better...
just dropping general tips for anyone.
peace be safe.
Mak'er Grow
Well-Known Member
Before I retired from the trade...ok I quit...lol
I noticed a lot of newer installs we did had GFI breakers and the bathrooms and water areas would get regular breakers, but have GFI outlets...or GFCI I think is the term used now.
bgmike8
Well-Known Member
From what an instructor at the community college told me, theyre doing gfci and i think its called arc fault breakers
Renfro
Well-Known Member
Talk about pissing me off... Fucking hate those damn things, nuisance trips...
raggyb
Well-Known Member
sorry if I'm making things worse throwing in my 2 cents when you have electricians on the call and i am no enectrician but I'm just a college boy and am rooting for you to fix this and I cannot help myself so here I go again. This seems like a problem you have to divide and conquer to find out what part is bad. it really could be any part, the wire, the outlet, the timer, the power strip, any of the lights,...etc. If current exceeds the limit of 15A on your fuse then the fuse blows. Amps is the unit of measure of current strength in electricity. It is much like the current in a river as in how fast is the water flowing downstream. If current goes over what parts were made for components would heat up too much and eventually burn or melt which is like the damn on the river breaking and flooding the town. The breaker turns off the flow of river water so even though the damn is broken the town is saved. Yay!
So if I recap what you say correctly, your oven, washer, dryer, hot water heater, fridge, etc all work fine. I don't know shit about trailers but those are all major appliances so the trailer manufacturer may have smartly put them on separate circuits. Your overhead lights nor half my plugs don't work. So it's not impossible they are on the same circuit even though they're in different rooms. By1 circuit you can think of it like 1 loop of wire going around your trailer from one plug or light to the next like a runner in baseball runs the bases so also called a 'home run'. To keep the level of the river at a constant height the power panel provides more current when you turn more things on. So when your timer went off something in that circuit got overstressed and failed, probably causing a short. And now the breaker repeatedly says nah ah, nogonadoit. This why I think and others think it's either an outlet, or it might even be the wiring behind the walls but from experience these guys say the outlets go before the wiring does.
So you really have to make sure EVERYTHING that doesn't work is unplugged and not just turned off, and do that on every plug that doesn't work. You have suspected one outlook, but if it doesn't look burnt or discolored, you have to check them all. And of course don't fuck with it if you aren't confident because it's dangerous! I'm saying you may have had too much current draw which was your original problem, but that caused another problem, so now you have to solve the second problem first. But regarding the first problem, too much power, let me try to add up your light's power draw. Again these guys may know right off, but I don't know LEDs so I have to do my best to look it up
You gave me a hlg100, 4 HLG qb 132, at 70 watts each, twoHLG qb 96 at 150 watts about each, and then myexhaust fan, and multiple fans in the tent. I'll probably ignore the fans. Note Watts are power and equal Current times Volts. So
Edit:
hlg100 = 95 watts
4 HLG qb 132, 75 watts x 4 = 300
twoHLG qb 96 at 150 watt x 2 = 300
I can't find the HLG qb 96, but a MW driver i see sold with it can drive up to 240 W, so safe to assume the most is 240 per?
So according to this you are not pulling 800 x 2 watts = 1600, but more like say 1000 watts with the extras. right? no a/c??? no electric space heater??
I have to ask if you are in Canada because you run on different voltage and I'm not sure if you have to check you are not buying US only electronics? Anyhow, I would say you are then pulling about 10 Amps of current from your grow room. If other things are on the same circuit, idk, space heater, blow dryer, etc. So anyhow, 10A is pretty high to run non-stop for 18 hours, and fluctuations can wear things down.
Check if you want if there are no errors in my guestimate above. Let us know if you have had other things in the trailer like space heater or ac in the plugs that don't work. even vacuum cleaner or blow dryer.
But to fix the problem you have now, you probably need to empty out the grow room and let a pro in there, if you don't find where the problem is pretty soon. Hope it works out for you. Keep asking questions if you want I'm sure we'll keep trying to answer...
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Renfro
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure all of Canada uses the same 120/240 volt spilt phase power for residential that we use in the USA.
Renfro
Well-Known Member
To no avail, he has tried resetting the breaker with his grow equipment unplugged. This eliminates the grow equipment as the cause.
Since the problem started out of nowhere it makes me think the homes wiring is likely ok.
I would do the following if I was there.
1) Pull the offending breaker and disconnect the wire from it, stick it back in and try to reset it with no wire connected. If this doesn't reset then the breaker is bad, if not proceed to step 2.
2) Using a multimeter test the wire that was connected to the breaker for continuity to ground. If there is no reading (open circuit) this is a good thing, if there is continuity then we have a short to ground either in the homes wiring OR more likely something faulty that is plugged in on that circuit.
3) If there is continuity from the hot to ground I would start by unplugging everything thats on that circuit and then with the wire reconnected to the breaker try to reset the breaker. If it won't stay ON then the problem is likely in the homes wiring and we would proceed to step 4. If the circuit stays ON then start plugging things back in one at a time until the breaker trips and then you have pinpointed the offending device.
4) With the circuit powered off, start pulling receptacles from the wall boxes to inspect for problems. The ground wire is not insulated and could be touching a hot terminal causing the short. This is unlikely as the wire probably did not move on it's own but we have to check. If you see any connections that are lose, tighten them. If you see anything melted, replace it.
Something to consider, have you put any nails or screws in the wall? If your nail or screw went through a cable then it could be shorting the hot and the ground inside the cable. That would suck because you will have to get in the wall and replace that section of cable from point to point, that may involve opening up more drywall than you would like.
getogrow
Well-Known Member
Fuckin junk. Those are not "more safe" , i think they are more prone to fire. Thats just my opinion. The guys making the codes are not installing them. They are junk, maybe a company will make a better one but ive not ran across a good one yet.
We started putting them in bedroom circuits back in 2004 ish , then by 2006 they were no longer needed.....now im pretty sure its code again to use them....not sure if its just the bedrooms or what all they added.
Either way ,. they are made junk , they trip for anything. We had to battle the inspector about putting them on the ceiling fans. The simple fan pops them every 20 or 30 times. (usually the day they sold the home, the buyers would walk in and blow a arc fault breaker by flipping the light switch on......that didnt help sell the house at all. At that point it was either buy us better arc fault breakers or fight the inspector over it.... the boss chose to fight the inspector)
GFCI outlets are junk too but at least they can handle regular stuff most of the time. That and they are a bit safer to use.
raggyb
Well-Known Member
oops. okay. sorry Ca.
Zeus709
Active Member
I 'am an electrician and I 'am confused by this thread lol. You guys sound like my customers when I get there and they already know the answer and use lot's of words to explain it. Go get a electrician to figure it out, I'm sure you can find someone to turn a blind eye or just shut it down for now. Get a 20 amp plug installed in the room for a iron or whatever else you can think of and run with that. Electricity can be a bitch sometimes, trust me I know.
Zeus709
Active Member
Take the neutral off the bar as well and check that for continuity. Could be either or.
You have to try to figure out what's on that breaker, isolate everything and break each leg(plug to plug) apart until it doesn't trip anymore.
PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
You don't sound like an electrician to me. You can't use a 20 amp fuse unless you have the proper wiring. Or am I misunderstanding something?
Zeus709
Active Member
Yeah you have to run a new wire. Try installing electrical equipment specifically for your grow, it's way safer and you know your limits.
Get it done before you start growing, instead of randomly plugging in thousands of watts of power into whatever room your in.