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

jesicalorren said:

i have an electrical question... i have 2 breakers powering my room a 20 amp and a 15 amp . i would like to ask what u would do , i have a 1000w hps 600w hps 400 w mh 250 t5 and a couple of fans and an air pump like the little industrial active air kind, i havent hooked up the 600 yet, in what configuration should i hook these up?? put the 1000 and the 400 on the 20 amp and the 600 and the other stuff on the 15? or u think i need to run a new 20 or ??? n e suggestions??? please help i wana get this stuff fired up.. +rep for some help please

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you can put the 1000 an 400 together on the 15 and that maxes that circuit out but is completely safe. then you have the whole 20 to do the 600+250+ fans an shit. the 20 gives you roughly 1900 watts to work with before its maxed. (by code 80% of the breaker is safe)
1900- 850 = 1050 left for fans an shit , just look at your fans an see the watts or amps they use. it should state both. same with the air pump.


first make sure those circuits are all by theirself so that you got the full 20 an 15 amps to work with.







soil

Hi,
I Just finished wiring a 20a 240v plug for a thru-wall A/C, the wire that was originally ran for this circuit was for a welder (50 amp breaker) so my electrical man said to use the 6 gauge for the 2 hot wires and the ground is about 10 gauge. I could not attach the 6 gauge to the terminals on the plug because it is so large, so i made 2 6 inch jumpers from 12 guage solid strand wire so i could attach the plug(i only did this for the 6 gauge). I have turned the unit on it does work fine but i am still not too sure untill i speak to someone that has some extensive knowledge of this! Is this Safe practice? THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!!

The ac i am using draws around 6 amps on cooling and 20 draw on startup.

ok got a question

i have a 1000 w ballast and cap and a home made hood grow room is sourrounded in that metal insulating material...was in buggerin around my room and the hood was wedged into the metal side wll tied there with peice of wire i moved the hood and seen a spark out of the corner of my eye and the light went out. sooo i took the wire that had the hood wedged into the wll off nothing happened just then. | I noticed that the hood hd embedded itself into the side of the wall sooooo i took it out of the wall and then big assed pop. i check the panel it didnt flip the breaker next i looked t the ballast seemed fine no scorching next i check the cap it was lying on its side touching the metl shelf it was sitting on one of the top cap thingies was ctually touching the metal shelf i stood the cap back up...
\\now as to how i grounded it i grounded the incoming line to the neutral on the buld itself but the hood itself is not grounded...should i have grounded the hood also becuse of the close metal walls? and should i try plugging the unit back in to test and should the hood also be grounded before i do this

icemaiden said:

ok got a question....

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see this thread
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/495748-help-asap-room-down.html#post6781852

Smokey87 said:

Hi, ........ Is this Safe practice? THANKS SO MUCH IN ADVANCE!!

The ac i am using draws around 6 amps on cooling and 20 draw on startup.

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what size breaker? if you are using the original 50 amp breaker, I would say no because you could be drawing 50 amps through the 12 gauge wire & that would make it glow.better to put a small subpanel at the end of the heavy wire and put in a 20 amp 220 breaker in the sub to wire your outlet to.
something like this & a 20 amp 220 breaker will run you about $35
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100559337/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

lbbongtoke said:

• I am using a spare bedroom for my grow area. I have 2 4bulb t5 lights, a medium size fan, a portable AC unit , a stand alone carbon filter and fan assy. I recently added a 600W HPS light for flowering. The room is on a 15amp C/B and as far as I know the AC unit pulls 7 amps by itself. My house is fairly new 2 yrs old and I was wondering if I can I add a 20 amp c/b? I have removed all of the side lighting I show in the pic. The room is on a separate 15 amp. Please help!​

  
  
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well your pic didnt turn out so well , but yes you can add a 20amp breaker to your existing panel if you know how. its really easy if you can fish the wire to it. (from outlet to panel)




soil

ok my grow roomis only permits15 amps ....i have on the way 2 1000w lights ane i know that draws about 18amps that gonna trip everything wat do i need to add so everything gonna be safe as gonna have 2 os fans and intake and ex/carbon and also will have a 10,000btu ac unit in and also wanna throw in a 400w in the closet for mothers....main breaker is right next to the grow room outside? much help appreciated

lbbongtoke said:

..... and I was wondering if I can I add a 20 amp c/b? I have removed all of the side lighting I show in the pic. The room is on a separate 15 amp. Please help!

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you do mean to add a 20 amp breaker & wiring & not swap the 15 for a 20 right? the hard part will be to get a wire from your breaker box to the room. a detailed how to w/ all the info you need will fill a small book so your best bet is to pick a book up on basic home wiring from a lowes or home depot

HIGHNSOCAL said:

..... what do i need to add so everything gonna be safe ....

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I would consider putting the 2 1k lights on a 220 circuit, same for AC if possible or if not, run 3 20 amp 110 circuits.1 for ea light & 1 for AC. use the existing outlets for fans & ect.
dont put both lights on a single 20amp 110 circuit as you will be maxing it out & startup draw will blow the circuit altho U could put the 400 w/ a 1k light on a 20 amp breaker.

wat would i need to buy so i can run the 3 20amp circuit? also im thinkin 100amps would be best since thinkin of turning the garage into a grow and will add 2 more 1k also if i go this the 100 wat do i need dont wanna burn shit down u know haha

start w/ a book on basic home wiring. besides boxes,romex wire & the outlets, you will need breakers that fit your box.get the name off the breaker box or bring a breaker w/ you. if your within 10 feet of the panel, each circuit will run you about $20 -depending on price of breaker,some oddball breakers can run double that or more.
if you are going to expand out to the garage,consider a subpanel in the garage. for this you will need an electrician.

yeah its about 10ft away.....thaanks man u answered everything i needed so i can start my next grow.

If you are only wiring 10 feet I'd say go big on the amps. The biggest expense is the thicker guage wire. I would do like 1 super thick run because it is so short and either put in a 4 prong dryer outlet for 110 and 220 outlets, or hard wire in a custom controller with a good assortment of outlets. I personally taught myself that stuff if u do your research, be careful and then be extra careful it's not too bad. Dxhydro.com I believe is a site that does te custom controllers with any combination of outlet types timed or untimed. I just made the controllers myself tho, I put up a couple diagrams in the DIY section. Here is also a link to wire sizes. I use this as a reference Myself and have verified the numbers to be sound. The thicker wire like I said can get pretty expensive, but better to over do it. No matter what you think you will need more outlets than you thought. http://electrical.about.com/od/wiringcircuitry/a/electwiresizes.htm. The first thing I did was load up on 20 amp circuits, and my box is almost full. If I did it over I would have just done like 2 50-100 amp 220 circuits.

what wire size will i need?
have to run cable 60ft to shop area from panell
cable will supply 100amp sub in shop
will be approx 9k watts used total

I really hope you havn't already explained how to do this because I havn't read through all 101 pages of this thread, but I was wondering how I could safely convert the amperage/voltage of a car or other wet cell battery so that it can be attached or converted into an uninterruptible power supply. I've heard from several people that sell USPs that this can be done, but I personally have no idea how and I'm not about to try to figure it out myself.

bricktown73 said:

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.

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Hey bricktown73, I tried to send you a PM but your inbox is too full, lol, please delete a few messages so I can send it or PM me an email address. I have some basic electrical questions regarding a small 400W closet grow and I was hoping you could offer some advice.

gargantuanganja said:

... I was wondering how I could safely convert the amperage/voltage of a car or other wet cell battery so that it can be attached or converted into an uninterruptible power supply. .......

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google DC to AC power converter. hundreds of places sell them. the more power to convert,the pricier they get

SativaMe@420 said:

Hey bricktown73, I tried to send you a PM but your inbox is too full, lol, please delete a few messages so I can send it or PM me an email address. I have some basic electrical questions regarding a small 400W closet grow and I was hoping you could offer some advice.

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you may have a long wait. -Bricktown has not posted in over a year. why not ask here? someone might be able to help

This thread is great, glad its around and still be answered to. Really makes this feel like a community.

Heres my questions. I have baseboard heaters in the basement and the wiring for the baseboard runs straight into my room from the power box. I want to use this power to run all of my lights, eventually I plan to have 4 600's and a 400watt in the room. In the power box the baseboard wiring connects to a 20 amp fuse and the baseboards are 240V(im in canada so its 240 not 220 and 120 not 110). So Im wondering how much light I can hook up to that 20 amp 240 fuse, Im guessing I can do all 4 600's off that one power line and I could easily run the 400 along with all my other power using devices off of an extrension cord with a seperate 120v 15amp fuse. What I want to know is how can I connect 4 ballasts to this power? What I have now is just a wire, because the baseboard don't use plugs so I need to fashion some sort of plugs onto the wire. Because It is only me that will ever be in that room Im not worried about doing it to code as long as it is safe. I was thinking of fixing the wires to a regular 120V power outlet, such as the ones that are typical around the house, and then simply using standard 120V plugs to plug into that outlet, Obviously thats not to code but as long as no one else is using plug there should be no problem. Can the standard household power sockets handle that much load? The baseboard wiring has a red a white and a naked ground wire. When I looked at a 240V power outlet(the type used for driers fridges and stoves) I was a bit confused to see that there are 4 connectors instead of the 3 typically seen with 120V outlets. Why do the plugs have 4 prongs and how do I connect my 3 wires to the 4 prong outlet if I wanted to do so? Do they have power bars with multiple outlets for 240 volt outlets? Ive never seen one. If it turns out completely unsafe to run that load through 120v hardware then I need to find some other way to plug all my ballasts into that power. Thanks you for the help. ohhh and how is this thread not a stickey?

20 amps of 220 (or 240) will give you about 4000 watts but for safety, stay under 3500 watts so 4 600watts lights will be fine.- a 600 draws more than 600 watts, a digital will draw 650 & an old mag type will draw a little over 700 watts.
220 in N.America is made up from 2 110v legs that are phased differently. the 4 prong outlets have 2 hot legs,1 neutral and a ground.
you can use 110 outlets and plugs but 220 outlets are not much more in price so why violate code and risk someone plugging your new TV into a 220 outlet by mistake to save $20? are your ballasts wired for 220 or can they be converted? instead of outlets, you could buy a hotwater heater type timer and hardwire everything to it.