Electrical Ques. If I can help someone I will...

My 240 V by 100 Amp is four lines, two black, one black with white tape, and a solid green.

Sooo... The two black I'm guessing are 120 by 50 Amp, The black with white tape is common??, and the solid core green coper is ground.? .....Right?

So I take the two black 50 amp and use each as it's own circuit? ( splitting the common between both. (A "Y" Connector splitting that (common) going to each circuit?))

Green to ground strip in box, shared by both circuits. (ok?)

What about the line load? will I need to balance each line/circuit??
Thanks for any help you can provide.

spark1 said:

OK, this is another easy one (since I use a Hanna Combo Gro Chek). When you connect/disconnect the pump,it moves the outlet box slightly, and the weight of the Gro Chek transformer makes it wiggle,losing connection for a millisecond. If you hold the transformer down,while you connect/disconnect your pump, I bet it doesn't shut down. I zip-tied mine to the plug strip, and that solved the problem.

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"Experience is the best answer", Spark1 !!!!!! Loose transformer!
I can't believe it was as simple as that.

Thanks for the repiles y'all.

Wow I woulda never guessed that... Cheers to spark1...

Dont you just love this site...

Buler?........Any one?

Charred said:

can anyone(preferably qualified electrician) just confirm wether it will still work, just want to be definate that i'm not going o come home and find my house on fire

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if it's a good quality item you ordered, I'm sure they'd give you a socket rated for your bulb. you can always ask them if you're unsure. I would think they'd give you a wattage rating on the socket.

ganjagoddess said:

Wow I woulda never guessed that... Cheers to spark1...

Dont you just love this site...

Click to expand...

Yes I do... I would have been screwin with that for who knows how long.

Thanks for the ideas GG.

And yes the power outages are a PITA.

Gotta keep a battery powered clock around all the time! LOL!!!!

Thanks again..

actually, I've been wondering, how badly would that hurt the plants if there was a power outage in the middle of the light cycle? probably mess with the plant pretty bad if it was in flowering?

lorenzo08 said:

actually, I've been wondering, how badly would that hurt the plants if there was a power outage in the middle of the light cycle? probably mess with the plant pretty bad if it was in flowering?

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High Lorenzo... my thoughts are that it will not be good for the bulb..hot start. Isn't it recommended to wait for the bulb to cool before restarting it. Shortens bulb life...?!!

But if you are so inclined.. program your light timer to go off in the middle of their night... let us know what you find.. I'm good with 12/12.

But what do I know!??? LOL!~!!

Hi, firstly, thanks for offering your services to everyone on the site, it's very generous of you to do that.
I am having what I believe is an electrical problem with timers. I am running 1x600w hps and 20x15w cfls. So far, I have fried 2 of those cheap timers and one of those with a supposed 30 amp switch inside. The maximum rating is 10 amps on these timers.
According to the guy at the hydro shop, the ballast for the 600w 'spikes' (whatever that means), at 15 amps, and so, apparently, you need a timer with a 30 amp switch in it.
The guy at the other hydro shop says they 'spike' at 2.8 amps. I don't know who's right and really wtf they're talking about, but I'm kind of sick of getting out bed every morning at the same time to turn off the lights (it kind of ruins your Saturday morning sleep-in).
The total wattage of my setup is about 983 watts including one tubular fluoro that has its own ballast which is an older type of cloning light with its own special reflector (looks like what they used in the early eighties) and I was wondering, since each of the cfls has its own little built-in ballast and I'm using two other devices, as mentioned before, that also have ballasts, whether this could be the reason that these timers, supposed rated for loads of 2400 watts, which I am way under.
Could it be the fact that maybe these ballasts are all building up the initial pull of current (which is what is what I assume 'spiking' is) and this is overloading the timer? Any ideas?

realmeatdildo said:

Hi, firstly, thanks for offering your services to everyone on the site, it's very generous of you to do that.
I am having what I believe is an electrical problem with timers. I am running 1x600w hps and 20x15w cfls. So far, I have fried 2 of those cheap timers and one of those with a supposed 30 amp switch inside. The maximum rating is 10 amps on these timers.
According to the guy at the hydro shop, the ballast for the 600w 'spikes' (whatever that means), at 15 amps, and so, apparently, you need a timer with a 30 amp switch in it.
The guy at the other hydro shop says they 'spike' at 2.8 amps. I don't know who's right and really wtf they're talking about, but I'm kind of sick of getting out bed every morning at the same time to turn off the lights (it kind of ruins your Saturday morning sleep-in).
The total wattage of my setup is about 983 watts including one tubular fluoro that has its own ballast which is an older type of cloning light with its own special reflector (looks like what they used in the early eighties) and I was wondering, since each of the cfls has its own little built-in ballast and I'm using two other devices, as mentioned before, that also have ballasts, whether this could be the reason that these timers, supposed rated for loads of 2400 watts, which I am way under.
Could it be the fact that maybe these ballasts are all building up the initial pull of current (which is what is what I assume 'spiking' is) and this is overloading the timer? Any ideas?

Click to expand...

RMD.. thanks for the question...Hey electricians...
I have a 600w ballast (upgrade from 400w) on the way.
Am I going to need new timers?

realmeatdildo said:

Hi, firstly, thanks for offering your services to everyone on the site, it's very generous of you to do that.
I am having what I believe is an electrical problem with timers. I am running 1x600w hps and 20x15w cfls. So far, I have fried 2 of those cheap timers and one of those with a supposed 30 amp switch inside. The maximum rating is 10 amps on these timers.
According to the guy at the hydro shop, the ballast for the 600w 'spikes' (whatever that means), at 15 amps, and so, apparently, you need a timer with a 30 amp switch in it.
The guy at the other hydro shop says they 'spike' at 2.8 amps. I don't know who's right and really wtf they're talking about, but I'm kind of sick of getting out bed every morning at the same time to turn off the lights (it kind of ruins your Saturday morning sleep-in).
The total wattage of my setup is about 983 watts including one tubular fluoro that has its own ballast which is an older type of cloning light with its own special reflector (looks like what they used in the early eighties) and I was wondering, since each of the cfls has its own little built-in ballast and I'm using two other devices, as mentioned before, that also have ballasts, whether this could be the reason that these timers, supposed rated for loads of 2400 watts, which I am way under.
Could it be the fact that maybe these ballasts are all building up the initial pull of current (which is what is what I assume 'spiking' is) and this is overloading the timer? Any ideas?

Click to expand...

I could see having a problem running 980 watts on a 10 amp fused timer, but even homedepot carries the now standard 15 amp fuse timers.

With that wattage and a 15 amp timer you should be fine.

Heres a link to a standard timer from HTGsupply

High Tech Garden Supply

Cheers.

GG

4maggio said:

RMD.. thanks for the question...Hey electricians...
I have a 600w ballast (upgrade from 400w) on the way.
Am I going to need new timers?

Click to expand...

No a 600 watt light draws about 5.9 amps, so most any timer can handle it just fine.

Thanks very much for your response. However, I am in Australia so there's no home depot here, and we have a standard that 10 amps is the legal limit for devices such as timers, this is why the hydro shop sting you $60 for a timer with a 30 amp 'switch' in it, that can supposedly handle what I',m doing, that is running basically 1000 watts. I don't know what the 30 amp 'switch' is?
The hydro shop guys also are telling me they've got people using 3x1000watt lights using these same timers without a problem. They're assuring me that it can handle at least 10 amps without burning out, but so far, well, I have the burned out timers to prove that's wrong.
So, why do you think this keeps occurring, please?

Well Now I am dumb founded because I just googled australia standard current and found out you guys run on 240v so even with 980 watts, you are only drawing 4.1 amps.

There should be no way the amp draw is fusing the contacts in a 10 amp timer at even with a high inductive load.

But I did find something for you to do that will solve this problem once and for all for less than $20.00.

Here you go.

GROWFAQ

There is also a bit of info in there for you.

If I am mistaken and you are running at 120v then I can see why the timers keep fusing.

yeh we do use 240V over here,
hey realmeatdildo, g to bunnings and buy the best timer you can. will cost about 30$max, works for me

might not help you in your country, but here, I got a brinks digital timer from walmart. the type I got has what I guess you could call a solid state relay. there are no relay contacts to fuse together or wear out. it uses what's called a triac, something like a transistor. a timer like this might work better for you.

you most likely have a transformer based ballast with a high voltage capacitor in it. these use a lot of power when they first turn on. kinda like an air conditioner. this fix might be a little more costly, but you could try buying a digital ballast with a "soft start" feature in it. these will first start off using less power to charge up when first turned on, so there's not as big of an initial surge.

I built a power supply for my living room stereo a few years ago. when it first turns on, it draws a surge of power to charge up the capacitors. this can burn up the contacts on the relays, so I put a soft start circuit in it. the first few seconds that it's turned on, it runs on low power, then switches a second relay to pull full power. works very nice.

My 240 V by 100 Amp is four lines, two black, one black with white tape, and a solid green.

Sooo... The two black I'm guessing are 120 by 50 Amp, The black with white tape is common??, and the solid core green coper is ground.? .....Right?

So I take the two black 50 amp and use each as it's own circuit? ( splitting the common between both. (A "Y" Connector splitting that (common) going to each circuit?))

Green to ground strip in box, shared by both circuits. (ok?)

What about the line load? will I need to balance each line/circuit??
Thanks for any help you can provide.



Any one?......
Thanks again.

this is something beyond the scope of the forum. you should have an electrician check your work before turning anything on.

I haven't been following your posts, so not exactly sure what you have or are trying to do. you're pretty much right so far. the 2 blacks are the hot wires, and the black with white tape is neutral (common). the hots are both 120v relative to the neutral, adding up to 240v. they are each 100 amp.

not exactly sure what you're doing with a "Y" connector, or with the 2 hot wires even. you probably have something like 2 gage cable coming in. this cannot be split off or spliced into at all! these cables have to go into a breaker panel before it can be of any use. I got a small panel for my house from home depot for $45.

where your 240v 100 amp wires are coming from, is there a 100 amp circuit breaker feeding that source? if there is a breaker on that end, then it is optional to have one in your sub panel. if your feed is coming right from the meter, then you will need a 100 amp breaker in your new panel. I always use anti-corrosion paste on all the high amperage connections. it's cheap, just put plenty on. you will also need a breaker panel with separate ground and neutral bars. if the panel is right at the meter, the ground and neutral can go together on the same bar, but with any distance and a sub panel, like in your case, they will be separate.

balancing the circuit can be worried about once the panel itself is installed. I think I talk to much, but no one's told me to shut up on here yet.

2 black (if in USA) are 2 120V. The one with the white tape is neutral, the sold green is ground.

So between either black and neutral (or ground) you should see 120.
Between the 2 black, 240,
between the white and neutral nothing (other then a few milli volt.)

Now, neutral is used because the 2 legs may not be equal to ground.
One may swing 150+ and 90-. exaggerated and not normal. (but then neutral is tied to ground in the box)


Load balancing probably isn't needed, but usually a good thing to do.
But you should ditch the double breaker and pop in 2 singles if splitting the circuit. Because if one leg pops, it will take the other with it if left as a double.

B4 Time said:

My 240 V by 100 Amp is four lines, two black, one black with white tape, and a solid green.



Sooo... The two black I'm guessing are 120 by 50 Amp, The black with white tape is common??, and the solid core green coper is ground.? .....Right?

So I take the two black 50 amp and use each as it's own circuit? ( splitting the common between both. (A "Y" Connector splitting that (common) going to each circuit?))

Green to ground strip in box, shared by both circuits. (ok?)

What about the line load? will I need to balance each line/circuit??
Thanks for any help you can provide.



Any one?......
Thanks again.

Click to expand...

No, No Buy all means keep going!

What I have is a line that use to feed a hot tub, it is 240 V by 100 Amp. It comes from the main panel off two 50Amp breakers. From the main panel it runs to a sub panel, again with two 50 amp breakers. Out of the sub panel runs the four wires that I am referring to in the above post, Black , Black , White, and Green.

What i want to do is remove the sub panel off the side of the house and relocate it in the room. All cable will just be moved over about 20'

The four wires coming out of the sub I want to make in to two new 120 V by 50 Amp circuits.

I havent wired any of this yet so there is no "Y". I'm just confused on how to make 2 common circuits out of one line.

Same for the ground

The two hot lines seem fine because I want two circuits.

Thanks for any help