150w HPS Club: Inspirational Resource

d@w$y

Well-Known Member
i tried wiring my 150 econo light and when i plugged it in it fucked up all my outlets upstairs! i dont know shit about wiring. haha it was kinda funny cuz the electrician came over and i only expected him to go in the garage because thats where the fuze box is and all that, and he ends up going upstairs into my room where my 2 foot bong was on display and my grow box!! hella sketchy! i was sweating the whole time. but i dont think he noticed the grow box, just the beautiful bong. hes comeing back tomorow because he cant figure out what happened. so ya, as you can imagine i feel pretty stupid. i hope the lights not broken:cry: but it was only 20 bucks so eh
hahaha shit 1 mate! but ya know the sparky is walkin out of the house sayin fucker stoner!! lol but it could be worse i had the peelers (cops) walk in to my place cause i was partin a bit loud and there was my 3foot bong called shrek sittin on the kitchen counter!! and didnt say shit bout it only said turn the music dwn!! so dont worry bout it!! just say u rewired something and blu the socket lol
 

mr.stankydanky

Active Member
hahaha shit 1 mate! but ya know the sparky is walkin out of the house sayin fucker stoner!! lol but it could be worse i had the peelers (cops) walk in to my place cause i was partin a bit loud and there was my 3foot bong called shrek sittin on the kitchen counter!! and didnt say shit bout it only said turn the music dwn!! so dont worry bout it!! just say u rewired something and blu the socket lol
haha ya it could definitely have been worse! so does anybody have a link to how to wire the 150 econo light? i know its simple but i dont wanna fuck up my house again. the cord im connecting the light to doesnt have colored wires so idk which ones positive or negative
 

bxke1414

Well-Known Member
Go spend $7 on a 3 prong extension cord at Walmart, strip the ends, black goes with black, white with white, and green with the copper ground. Cap and Tape.
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
For all your wiring, I recommend getting heavy duty replacement cables. I purchased an 8 ft., 16 gauge replacement cord rated for 13 amps. Operating safely is important when you are doing something like this. To impart some electrical knowledge

Electrical wire comes in many thicknesses (gauges) indicated by number. Higher numbers indicate smaller wire and lower numbers indicate larger wire. Most household circuits are connected with 14-gauge wire. Wire thickness is important for two reasons--ampacity and voltage drop. Ampacity is the amount of amperes a wire is able to carry safely. Electricity flowing through wire creates heat. The more amps flowing, the more heat created. Heat is wasted power. Avoid wasting power by using the proper thickness of well-insulted wire.

Ensure that you have a fuse in your house that you can plug this into safely. You can see the amperage rating of your fuse by looking at the number on the fuse in your fuse box. Most will be 15. If you have an American circuit breaker then your are probably running 120V. Safe usage of the electricity running through there is %80. You want to maintain this to reduce heat buildup and/or overload. 120 * 15 = 1800W. 80% of that is 1440W. Now consider other things you may have running on that circuit:
-Computer with 350W power supply?
-Lamps with 40W light bulbs?
-Printers?
-Heaters?
-Appliances?
-You get the point. Check your s$%& and don't overload your circuit.

Getting back to the cord... considering an 80% safe usage on the 13 amps, you can still safely use the wire for the 150W lamp. I will not go into the math here, again. If you are interested in the details: look up Ohm's Law.

With the electricity discussion behind us, we can now get onto the fun stuff.


So, the first step is getting your lamp. You can order it from the company using their online order form. I ordered an extra lamp with it. Here is what I got in the mail:


While that is on it's way, you should need some supplies. Before you go out and get some used supplies from some junk bin at a hardware place or out of a dumpster: consider where these electrics may be and/or what they may be near. Now consider the god-awful molded, rotted, worn down meth house this little electrical screw may have come from. Just think about that when you are getting supplies. They aren't very expensive and you'll have to clean the other stuff anyway. So, here's what you'll need:
-the previously discussed wire - I recommended 8ft. because that is plenty for my needs. In this guide, we will be cutting the wire in different lengths: 1 being the plug to the ballast, the other being the ballast where the lamp/socket needs to be. Ensure you get a long enough replacement cable, or additional cable, to suit your needs.
-a 4 inch electrical box
-some wire cutters and wire strippers (or a combo of the them)
-wire screws (variety pack with different sizes is good)

There are other alternatives to the above, but you get the idea.

Once a week or so has passed, you'll have your supplies and a lamp. Now that you have your light, you can become a little bit happier:


With your excitement complete, it's time to get your light out of the package and get it ready to disassemble:


The first thing you'll notice about the light is that it is much heavier and bulkier than anticipated. Trust me. The first two things to remove are the screws on the outside that hold the cage and "light jar" for lack of a better word:


Screws removed, you can twist the cage and pull it off. The light jar will twist out, like a jar, and then you can get your lamp from inside. Set your lamp aside:


Try not to get too many fingerprints on the lamp. If you do, most suggest you wipe them off with a cloth:


There are some weird hidden screws that you have to get to now. They are hidden underneath the large flat rubber guard in the ballast housing. Simply pry the rubber casing up and cut it off. You don't need it. Then you can access the screws underneath:




Once you have removed those screws, you will want to remove the screws that are in the very base of the light socket. They are two small silver screws. Be careful when you are removing these and use a small enough screwdriver to fit in there. You don't want to jam something in there and break the socket. I took the bit out of the screwdriver and used it:


Now you can move to the 3 screws surrounding the ballast housing:


The light will open, and you will see the 4 parts that are the inside of the light.


There is a brass colored bar that is holding the ballast in the casing. Leave that in there for now. You can inspect the parts now in all of their glory. Before you disassemble, take a good look at how the unit is wired. Especially if you are unfamiliar with wiring. While a guide can be helpful, but it is good to take a look for yourself. Take notes if you want. Now you can take off the big brass bar. Unscrew all the wire caps. If you took the screws out of the socket before, it will come off now. Now you have your ballast, your ignitor, and your socket. You should give yourself a pat on the back 'cause your halfway through.
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
We've got all of our pieces sitting in front of us.


We've got the ballast (deceptively heavy):


We've got the ignitor:


And we've got the socket:


You've also got your plug cord and your extension cord.

A note before we start to put the wires together: take your time with the next few steps. Ensuring that your wires are securely twisted together and that the wire screws are on securely is very important.

I recommended 8 ft. before as you can use the plug to attach to the ballast and use the remaining cord to extend the length from the ballast to the socket.

First, you will want to measure how much distance you will need from your plug, to where your ballast will rest it's electrical box. If you are good at stripping wires then you know how much more space to give yourself. If you aren't, give yourself plenty of extra cable: you may accidentally cut into the cables within the outer jacket, and need to start with a fresh cut again.

Strip the wires so that you have adequate room to attach them together. Here's what you'll have
Plug Cord: W, Blk, Grn
Ballast Extension Cord (the other half of the cord): W, Blk, Grn
Ballast: B, Red, Blu
Ignitor: Red, W, Blu
Socket: W, Blk

Here's how to connect the wires to eachother. After properly attaching the ground wire to a good grounding place (if you don't understand this, read up on it), you can get your other wires connected. This is where you'll want to get your plug wire in through one hole of the electrical box and get your extension cable up into the other hole. (It's a box. I know, punch the hole out with a screwdriver.
)

-Extension cord and socket: attach the white of the cord to the white of the socket. Attach the black of the cord to the black of the socket.
-Extension cord, plug cord and ignitor: attach the white of the extension cord to the white of the ignitor and the white of the plug cord.
-Extension cord, ballast and ignitor: attach the black of the cord to the blue of the ballast and the blue of the ignitor.
-Ballast and ignitor: attach the red to the red.
-Ballast and plug cord: attach the black of the ballast to the black of the plug cord.




Screw the lamp into the socket.

Do a little dance of luck and joy.



Here's a couple of examples of wiring found inside 150w hps



OK and for those who have a capacitor in the system here's a wiring diagram for that.






Metal Halide

Wiring Diagram
HPS

(High Pressure Sodium)
Wiring diagram


Also worth noting is that most ballasts come with the wiring diagram on the back like so -



Hope thats a help
 

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downthedrains

Well-Known Member
Great post frosty. I have my two ballasts in my shop so i kept them in the vapor tight fixture and just did a remote socket kinda deal.

For those who don't want to do as much work you can keep the components in the fixture and I like it because it is safe being thick metal and what not. Just don't go placing it on carpet....

+rep Frosty :)
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
good tip downthedrain.
i used the guts from my hps to mount it to a barn style batwing reflector, and made a lil metal rame/casing for the ballast that sits on top of my cab with a 12v fan blowing thru it to keep the unit cool, works like a dream.
 

downthedrains

Well-Known Member
good tip downthedrain.
i used the guts from my hps to mount it to a barn style batwing reflector, and made a lil metal rame/casing for the ballast that sits on top of my cab with a 12v fan blowing thru it to keep the unit cool, works like a dream.
Yeah that sounds like a nice setup. Mine is outside and get's pretty chilly... I still need to rig a better exhaust to help with humidity(around 70percent, EEEK).

https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/grow-journals/235248d1226031121-first-grow-g13-labs-power-img00062.jpg

That's my current setup...I'll be putting another HPS light in the middle come flower time...I might actually hang it below the canopy...
Right now I'm using one HPS light and one 65w CFL
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
That has the potential be a killer setup.
cant wait to see how it performs for you in the later stages :)

k time to catch some zzz's..

peace out.

Frosty
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
Ok gang, i've been thinkin bout adding a 70w hps into the 150 cab during flowering to replace the 65W daylight CFL that i've been using.
I will be buying a light in the next wk, and IF you guys want i'll do a photographic breakdown of the light and removal of the ballast etc to make it remote?!
 

downthedrains

Well-Known Member
Ok gang, i've been thinkin bout adding a 70w hps into the 150 cab during flowering to replace the 65W daylight CFL that i've been using.
I will be buying a light in the next wk, and IF you guys want i'll do a photographic breakdown of the light and removal of the ballast etc to make it remote?!

Ok....
I have a killer idea, and I would most definitely help out frosty.
There should be a thing in the GrowFAQ that we can link people to on information and wiring info on the econolight and modifying security lights.
 

bxke1414

Well-Known Member
Good deal, I have posted a few threads about how to wire the econolight, but to no avail people keep asking how to do it.
 

downthedrains

Well-Known Member
Good deal, I have posted a few threads about how to wire the econolight, but to no avail people keep asking how to do it.
Yeah this way we can just have the link somewhat on had and drop it down instead of having to explain, or say to actually fucking read the thread!!!!!!!!:cuss:
LOL...I got a little bit riled up there...
 

frostythesnowthug

Well-Known Member
Yup i hear ya.
People seem to skip the search button, but it seems its easier to post a thread thats been done a thousand times than to trawl thru the previous threads of said topic.

anyhoo, back on track...
I'll be ordering a 70w light on wed, and will prolly do the tutorial next wk end. :)
 

Christianw1985

Well-Known Member
I bought the $20 dolla dolla bill 150 HPS E-Conolight. Made my own watering system thats on its own digital timer, made with a fish pump that pressurises the reservoir pushing the water into the 4 way splitter. Three lines out to the plants and one return line, that way i can control the pressure build up in the tank:) Other timer is on 12/12 for the light. Using Big Grow right now, going to get the Big Bud and will start to feed that when acquired:bigjoint:
 

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