A Bored Electrician to Answer Your Questions

IAm5toned said:

in plain english that means that instead of your hps lamp lasting 8-12 months before you begin to lose the k rating, it will now last up to 3 years before the spectrum begins to change. ( at least thats what the manufacturers say) go with digital,

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Wait so if I understand you. If my ballast is say 5 years old and I buy a new bulb.
As a result of the ballast being older the new bulb will be week right out of the box? If so how often would I want to replace the mechanical ballast? Im also not sure its mechanical. Are digital and mechanical the only types? Thanks again for your time answering all our questions.

good answer bro... that would scare me too. I tried to +rep but i must spread it around more, of course...

just checkin' in... i havent run that cat5 cable yet... too busy choppin'

would the process of setting up a set of car HID headlights be worth the output? with the felxibility options of using those small bulbs it seems like a topic that could be debatable to some subject. But this is why i ask for your advice. Maybe you could use the 3500k temp bulbs. those are pretty standard stock HID lightbulbs. And they all generally run right around 55watts and have their own ballasts. any input is awesome. Thanks!

I've always been curious about the wiring set- up.. Correct me if I am wrong, The typical wall outlet is 110v if you were to use the wall outlet what is the maximum power you can use? Or Your power supply would have to come from a 220v which are typical plugs for dryers, fridge, stove etc.
Here is a diagram of what I think is the only power source set up if you were to run a set up like this....

http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/_derived/wiringlights.htm_txt_2-bulbs-1-ballast-schematic.gif

doctorD said:

Wait so if I understand you. If my ballast is say 5 years old and I buy a new bulb.
As a result of the ballast being older the new bulb will be week right out of the box? If so how often would I want to replace the mechanical ballast? Im also not sure its mechanical. Are digital and mechanical the only types? Thanks again for your time answering all our questions.

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i think you misunderstood me... HID lamps last longer in digital ballasts than mechanical ballasts. do you have the model number of your ballast? i can tell you all about it if u do

i8urbabi said:

would the process of setting up a set of car HID headlights be worth the output? with the felxibility options of using those small bulbs it seems like a topic that could be debatable to some subject. But this is why i ask for your advice. Maybe you could use the 3500k temp bulbs. those are pretty standard stock HID lightbulbs. And they all generally run right around 55watts and have their own ballasts. any input is awesome. Thanks!

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im honestly not sure... i think you have two main problems though- the headlights will pull a shitload of 12vdc... like 25-30 amps worth for a single pair of lamps. a 25-30 amp dc power supply is going to run you around 200$... then theres the issue of cooling them.. im not sure how you would, and since the lamps will not fit in any standard socket that a house lamp will, your going to have to invent a fixture that is fire proof to hold them in place. interesting idea though, it might be viable for pc cabs or other stealthy setups, but for the price your gonna pay to power them up and the time it will take rigging a fixture and figuring a way to cool it, i would just spend the cash on a nice remote ballast from ebay and grab a socket and reflector hood or cooltube while i was at it... just my opinion though. im also not sure the lamps would give the proper spread of light to make them effective, as the lamps really get there brilliance from the reflector lense in the headlight assembly... woul be fun to experiment if you had the parts lying around, but as for myself i just dont see myself spending that much when i could get top of the line for the same price with no aggravation

BloodShot420 said:

good answer bro... that would scare me too. I tried to +rep but i must spread it around more, of course...

just checkin' in... i havent run that cat5 cable yet... too busy choppin'

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lol i know man... that panel had gremlins written all over it. i really felt bad for the guy when i saw the post... cuz i know what hes gonna have to go through to make it right

Dear Mr. Stoned,

Firstly, thank you for being so selfless in helping all of us stoners who don't know a thing about electricity, +rep right off the bat for that.

Now, onto my question (and I apologize if this has been asked in the first 29 pages, but it's a relatively straightforward question, methinks) - I'm currently growing tomatoes in my garage, which splits a 40 ampere breaker with my shed, which never gets any use, so basically my garage gets 40 amps.

Anyhow, I was wondering what is entailed in perhaps dedicating some of the "empty" slots in my fusebox to also handle the load in the garage - I'm guessing it's not as simple as having an electrician rewire the breakers to each other, but it'd be really sweet if that's all it entailed.

Obviously my tomato growing is quite private and no one can get into the garage, so your help is greatly appreciated.

Pics below:



The 40 breaker I use currently.



A couple of empty slots that I'd like to "borrow" some power from, if possible.



Full view of my circuit breaker.

Again, thanks very much for your input and your selfless giving with this thread.

IAm5toned said:

i think you misunderstood me... HID lamps last longer in digital ballasts than mechanical ballasts. do you have the model number of your ballast? i can tell you all about it if u do

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From what I can tell its Advance Son Agro 430-watt HPS CWI 71A9898 with a mfg date of 2001.

Wow, thanks. The white wire is a wire my roommate runs to his room upstairs to power a 600 W HPS that he used on a previous grow...if it looks sketch I will probably have it removed. Everything else on the breaker outside was there when we moved into the house. How much are the panels you would recommend for our setup?? Another grower recommended a local electrician who does setups for grow houses, and our budget is roughly 2K for the whole setup, about 500 of which has been spent..so far we have 2 600W HPS lights, a 400W MH, 2 3*3 ebb and flow trays, and enough lumber to build a 5*7 enclosure. so we are close to set on what we really need to get up and running with the exception of building the physical enclosure and doing the electrical stuff. How much will panels cost for what we need to do? The other grower we talked with said the guy he recommends usually charges $3-500 off the books to wire everything so we will talk to him and get an estimate. But thanks so much again!

whathits14 said:

Wow, thanks. The white wire is a wire my roommate runs to his room upstairs to power a 600 W HPS that he used on a previous grow...if it looks sketch I will probably have it removed. Everything else on the breaker outside was there when we moved into the house. How much are the panels you would recommend for our setup?? Another grower recommended a local electrician who does setups for grow houses, and our budget is roughly 2K for the whole setup, about 500 of which has been spent..so far we have 2 600W HPS lights, a 400W MH, 2 3*3 ebb and flow trays, and enough lumber to build a 5*7 enclosure. so we are close to set on what we really need to get up and running with the exception of building the physical enclosure and doing the electrical stuff. How much will panels cost for what we need to do? The other grower we talked with said the guy he recommends usually charges $3-500 off the books to wire everything so we will talk to him and get an estimate. But thanks so much again!

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the panels themselves will run you roughly 100-120$usd for a 100amp panel and breakers. a 200 amp main disconnect panel is gonna be in the neighborhood of 179. you already have the breakers for that so you shouldnt need to buy any more, just use the old ones. the biggest expense will be rebuilding the meter base and service drop...its hard to estimate that but prolly 1k altogether, you cant buy a meterbase from anyone but the power company... which means permits will have to be pulled, inspectors will have to approve the work being done, and the power company will have to be there to shut the power off and connect the new service to there equipment....... sux

IAm5toned said:

the panels themselves will run you roughly 100-120$usd for a 100amp panel and breakers. a 200 amp main disconnect panel is gonna be in the neighborhood of 179. you already have the breakers for that so you shouldnt need to buy any more, just use the old ones. the biggest expense will be rebuilding the meter base and service drop...its hard to estimate that but prolly 1k altogether, you cant buy a meterbase from anyone but the power company... which means permits will have to be pulled, inspectors will have to approve the work being done, and the power company will have to be there to shut the power off and connect the new service to there equipment....... sux

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Any chance I can get away with just replacing/rewiring the laundry room panel? How many amps can the main handle consistently? At most 2* 6.0 Amps for the 600's. 10 for the 1000 IF we get it, and 4 for the 400, so 26 amps at a time + a few for a fan?

3mpire said:

I've always been curious about the wiring set- up.. Correct me if I am wrong, The typical wall outlet is 110v if you were to use the wall outlet what is the maximum power you can use? Or Your power supply would have to come from a 220v which are typical plugs for dryers, fridge, stove etc.
Here is a diagram of what I think is the only power source set up if you were to run a set up like this....

http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/_derived/wiringlights.htm_txt_2-bulbs-1-ballast-schematic.gif

Click to expand...

sorry i missed your post last night...

using that diagram, with a 15amp circuit your going to be limited to a max of 1440w total @ 120vac, OR 2880w @ 240vacfor the entire circuit.

also i noticed a flaw in the schematic.. its missing a timer relay circuit to restart the ballasts...

so @ 120vac any lamp combination bigger than 1440w will trip the breaker.

also keep in mind the ballast itself will use 30-60w a peice, and any timers and fans will also use additional wattage

Ok-a quick math test..!
So I have 500 wats of fluros, running on a schedule 20/4...How much will it cost me a month roughly???



Blaze on.....

doctorD said:

From what I can tell its Advance Son Agro 430-watt HPS CWI 71A9898 with a mfg date of 2001.

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Sorry to hearse you but did you find anything out?

whathits14 said:

Any chance I can get away with just replacing/rewiring the laundry room panel? How many amps can the main handle consistently? At most 2* 6.0 Amps for the 600's. 10 for the 1000 IF we get it, and 4 for the 400, so 26 amps at a time + a few for a fan?

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NEVER rate devices by amperage... always wattage. ALWAYS. amperage has nothing to do with the amount of power being used.

since your used to using amperage ill do the math and convert the numbers over

a single 600 w lamp and ballast will use approximately 5.41 amps of current.. so you have 2 of them.. which is 10.82 amps.
10.82 amps = 1298 watts... a 15amp breaker will want to trip at 1440w.
so thats one breaker.

the 1000w lamp and ballst will pull 8.83 amps.. and the 400w will pull so 3.58 amps. thats another 15 amp breaker.

using that we can say tht your total load for the grow op, (plus an addditional 150w for fans and timers and pumps and stuff) will be: 2938 watts

2938 watts @ 120vac= 24.48 amps

2938 watts @ 240vac= 12.24 amps

the ideal solution would be to have 240v ballasts, so that the larger portion of the load could easily be run off of one 15amp breaker, and then have one 15 or 20amp 120v circuit for normal plugs so you can plug in the pumps/timers etc etc.

now back to the subpanel.. like i said before, it has to go. no ifs ands or buts about it. you said your running a stove, and a washer/dryer on it. i will assume that if your using the stove, and doing some laundry, and the lights are all on you will be using-
68.40 amps or 16,418 w (16kw/h) the closest size electrical panel that will fit is a 100amp panel. they dont make a 75amp panel, and a 60amp is nowhere near big enough.

so you can see how you would be pulling almost 70amps to that subpanel, which means the wire that feeds it must also be good for 70amps.. which will be #4 awg copper. i seriously doubt that there is #4 wire feeding that subpanel right now. maybe #8 (which is twice as small)at best...

your main panel is a 125 amp intermittant duty panel that can be rated for 100amps of continous duty... this means your main breaker will want to trip at 100amps. this means that if your using close to 70amps to run the subpanel, you only have 30 amps to run the rest of the house! so as soon as the water heater turns on bam! main breaker just kicked. so the main service must be upgraded to accomodate the load of the lights you want to add.. its a real bitch but its going to have to happen if you plan on living in the house at the same time.

grow space said:

Ok-a quick math test..!
So I have 500 wats of fluros, running on a schedule 20/4...How much will it cost me a month roughly???



Blaze on.....

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man rates are determined by your local utility company... using algorithims and guidlines established by the DOE. theres really no way i can do the math on that for you
i can tell you that your using 10 kilowatts a day, which would equate to 30kw per billing cycle

doctorD said:

Sorry to hearse you but did you find anything out?

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that is an advance magnetic ballast, or a mechanical ballast. expect a bulb life of 9-12 months of operation before u get color shift

IAm5toned said:

man rates are determined by your local utility company... using algorithims and guidlines established by the DOE. theres really no way i can do the math on that for you
i can tell you that your using 10 kilowatts a day, which would equate to 30kw per billing cycle

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Okok..Im just so blazed right nownow

Bob Smith said:

Dear Mr. Stoned,

Firstly, thank you for being so selfless in helping all of us stoners who don't know a thing about electricity, +rep right off the bat for that.

Now, onto my question (and I apologize if this has been asked in the first 29 pages, but it's a relatively straightforward question, methinks) - I'm currently growing tomatoes in my garage, which splits a 40 ampere breaker with my shed, which never gets any use, so basically my garage gets 40 amps.

Anyhow, I was wondering what is entailed in perhaps dedicating some of the "empty" slots in my fusebox to also handle the load in the garage - I'm guessing it's not as simple as having an electrician rewire the breakers to each other, but it'd be really sweet if that's all it entailed.

Obviously my tomato growing is quite private and no one can get into the garage, so your help is greatly appreciated.

Pics below:

View attachment 573923

The 40 breaker I use currently.

View attachment 573924View attachment 573925

A couple of empty slots that I'd like to "borrow" some power from, if possible.

View attachment 573926

Full view of my circuit breaker.

Again, thanks very much for your input and your selfless giving with this thread.

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your going to make me blush

what will determine the answer to what your asking is how big is the wire going to the garage from the panel? it maybe possible to squeeze some more power through it to the garage... but it then again it might not be! and is there another small panel in the garage?

another question im asking is are you sure that the unlabeled breakers are not being used, and just not labeled?


ps- the blank spot at the top left corner in the panel is the only 'empty' or spare slot i see