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

LaMarr said:

What I want to do is run two flowering rooms on the 12 hr. cycle using one ballast,how do you wire the relay switch to accomplish this ? Thank you in advance.

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It requires a 'normally open' and 'normally closed' switch if you are talking about having the lights on one at a time. VV

how can i use these lights in my room what suplys do i need

I think I will need a lil more explanation,what is a 'normally open' 'normally closed' switch,& can I just go to an electrical shop & ask for that & they will automatically know what I'm talking about ?

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/5B132

LaMarr said:

I think I will need a lil more explanation,what is a 'normally open' 'normally closed' switch,& can I just go to an electrical shop & ask for that & they will automatically know what I'm talking about ?

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so I use this to go ALONG with the relay switch or INSTEAD of the relay switch or it IS the relay switch (non-electrician as yu can tell *hunched shoulders*)

takes about 85 amps or so to melt a socket or switch, if your breaker fails to that point your house may spontaniously combust

Hey guys, in the process of setting everything up, I will be running 6 (1k) hps in the sealed flowering room (20x11x hooked up to a mlc-8xt 220v, and 12" vortex pushing the carbon filter and 2 8" vortex fans cooling the lights, planning on using the hydro-gen co2 gen using r/o filter waste water to cool. flowering room has a 2 ton ac hooked up. Running 3 tables with 1 pump per table.

veg. room (10x10xwill be hand watered, running 1 (1k) mh cooled with 8" ice box pulling r/o waste water and 2-3 t-5 4ft x 8 bulb florescents, and 1 ez-cloner, no ac.

I also have a 220v house purging fan that i am planning on using to clear the area out side of both rooms to keep the temps down. and a basic r/o filter supplying both rooms with agua.

from what I saw the breaker box supports 90 amps? im a laymen in terms of electrical so wondering if I will have to add another box, there are about 6-8 open 110v breakers now, can 2 of the 110v can be combined to support the 220v mlc-8xt?

I really like the set up pics posted in the beginning and hope to be able to set up my power the same way, i want everything in this grow to be clean and done right! any help is appreciated, we are just about done with framing and pondering plumbing and electrical, would you recommend doing drywall then doing the electric? ballasts will be housed above the ceiling out of the room. should i install outlets in the ceiling for the t-5s and in the vicinity of the vent fans i will be using?

sorry so scatterbrained, just trying to trouble shoot before the trouble.

thanks all

those smileys should be 8s, not sure what happened there

Bricktown, Thanks for all the info
Here is a stupid question...if you have a 600w digital ballast running a 250w light does it consume more power than if you used a 250w ballast to run the same light?

I only need a 250w now but might get a bigger ballast so I can upgrade in the future.
Thanks

LaMarr said:

so I use this to go ALONG with the relay switch or INSTEAD of the relay switch or it IS the relay switch (non-electrician as yu can tell *hunched shoulders*)

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It is the switch. You hook a timer up to run the coil of it. Set it for 12/2. When its off, the power from the ballast will go to bulb #1 and when its on, it will go to bulb #2.

Power from the ballast goes to the common terminals. Bulb #1 gets the N.C. terminals, and Bulb #2 gets the N.O. terminals.

I wanna turn and old five gallon water cooler into a small ac for my grow cab, do you have any experience with turning the compresor into an ac if so please advice me thanks

Hey Bricktown.

Maybe you can help me. I want to use an old window fan (dual fans) and split them up for an intake and exhaust fan.

However, the wiring on these is complicated. Wondering if there is any way to run direct power to each fan and split them up.

Please see the diagram.

I need to know which wire on the fan is the power, and which is ground, to eliminate the switch.

Thanks in advance!

BigBudBalls said:

It is the switch. You hook a timer up to run the coil of it. Set it for 12/2. When its off, the power from the ballast will go to bulb #1 and when its on, it will go to bulb #2.

Power from the ballast goes to the common terminals. Bulb #1 gets the N.C. terminals, and Bulb #2 gets the N.O. terminals.

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thanks bra,I appreciate your help

ghostsamurai25 said:

I wanna turn and old five gallon water cooler into a small ac for my grow cab, do you have any experience with turning the compresor into an ac if so please advice me thanks

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Unless its a tiny cab, don't bother.
I'd suggest using it to cool water, like it is doing now, and pumping the water through a radiator with a fan blowing through it. Would be more efficient and less trouble to do.

LaMarr said:

thanks bra,I appreciate your help

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One thing to consider (though I'm not sure of but look good on paper) Is if its a HPS, you *might* need to cycle the power to the ballast its self, to get the igniter/cap to function properly.

what suplys do i need to power my room i cant plug in to wall outlet so is there any way i could power these lights safely or else im just using 1 with 2 L.E.D ufos to help with the flowering.THANKS for ure help

I have had the same 400W digital ballast for a couple months now, but I just switched from using the HPS bulb that came with it, to a MH bulb. I turned it on for minutes or so and it seemed to work fine, didnt get hot, but it did seem to make a louder high pitch buzzing noise than the other bulb. I wanted to check in here and make sure that is not a cause for concern before I turn on the new bulb for any significant amount of time...better safe than sorry

ok so I have this thermostat:

PECO TF115-001 Line Voltage Control - Heating/Cooling - SPDT - Open / Close on rise

basically im a wiring noob and looking for someone to tell me where to connect what color wise

I'm using the blue wire because it was for cooling. Inside the plastic connecter there's a metal tube that connects the wires.

This is what I've done so far. The fan turns on initially when I set the thermostat to 110. When I turn the thermostat to the current room temp, it shuts down my entire outlet and throws the breaker which I then have to reset...

idk what im doing wrong. I know the wiring is messy ill clean it up once i know what is the correct config

pics:

BigBudBalls said:

One thing to consider (though I'm not sure of but look good on paper) Is if its a HPS, you *might* need to cycle the power to the ballast its self, to get the igniter/cap to function properly.

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my plan was to run a ballast that operates both mh & hps,as stated before I am no electrician so you totally lost me with 'cycle the power to the ballast itself',upon reading your first answer my understanding was to run power to the ballast run the ballast to the relay & then run the relay to the lights,is this not correct ?, & thank you for your help.

xswesx said:

ok so I have this thermostat:

PECO TF115-001 Line Voltage Control - Heating/Cooling - SPDT - Open / Close on rise

basically im a wiring noob and looking for someone to tell me where to connect what color wise

I'm using the blue wire because it was for cooling. Inside the plastic connecter there's a metal tube that connects the wires.

This is what I've done so far. The fan turns on initially when I set the thermostat to 110. When I turn the thermostat to the current room temp, it shuts down my entire outlet and throws the breaker which I then have to reset...

idk what im doing wrong. I know the wiring is messy ill clean it up once i know what is the correct config

pics:

Click to expand...

connect the black wire from your power cord to the black wire of the thermostat. connect the blue wire from the thermostat to the black wire of the fan. connect the white wire of your power cord to the white wire of your fan. connect the green wire of your power cord to the green wire of the thermostat and to the green wire of the fan.