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

proheto8008 said:

so i figured it out i think. It was a fuckin headach but i knew some relay logic was the way to go.

the boxes with the "X"'s on them are the electromagnet side of a relay.(there are 3 of them)

the contacts in front of the boxes are the normally open and normally closed contacts.

If you dont understand this diagram it is an "OR" gate.

it means that if either A OR B OR C is energized then it will energize the other circuit.

I should have known this was the gate to use when i was working over the problem in my head. I kept saying to myself "i want the fan to come on if room 1 OR 2 OR 3requests it to.

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does anyone know anything about relay circuits/industrial relay logic? I want to add a secont output to this circuit. I want to add a speed control so that the fan is on low speed if only one room needs air, but if 2 or more need air then it switches the fan into high speed.

I figure i can do it with a single pole double throw relays(to give me a second output, but how do i wire the output to the speed controller so that i get the desired results.

I can think for myself so im not looking for someone to figure the whole thing out for me but i could use a nudge in the right direction.

hey question for any of you electricians out there..I'd like to get an approximate estimate on how much it would cost to run a separate 30 amp circuit running to the basement recreation room i;ll need to run 2 1000hps lights 2 1000 watt metal halide 1 6 inch exhaust fan and many squirrel cage blowers. it is COLD AS FUCK where i live so i wont be in any need of AC thanks alot to everyone who is replying to posts as i am learning alot

tha dankster said:

i have a problem. really big problem. everytime my heating and air unit for the house comes on it trips my light. anyone know why?

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Does it come back on after a few minutes by itself? If so, voltage drop. Could be the house wiring or util co.

HEYYYY SPARKY.....

I've got a 425cfm fan. I am putting it on a speed control when the light is off. Is running the fan at less than full speed hard on the fan?
Seems to be a decent speed control from HTG supply.

Thanks for the help as always!!!

it's on an isolated circuit. when the air unit cuts on, the light cycles off and comes right back on. i know this to be bad for plants as well as the bulb itself. someone told me it could be the bulb is getting old....thanks for you reply.. sorry if my format is a little off, kinda new to forums. thanks

hey, i picked up a cooltube with that has a built in socket for the bulb with b/w wires comin out the back bare. The ballast i got with it has a socket attached to the end of its output already too, so do i need to splice the cable before its socket and wire it to the one already on the cooltube? note the one already attached will not mount properly in the cooltube.

also 2nd part to do with voltage, the ballast says 240v on it with marker, but has a 3 prong 120 volt looking plug on it. The manufacturer writing on it says 120v, but then has a chart showing that 240v = 4.5 amps/120v=9.5 amps or something close to that, i asked them to wire it to 240v for me at the store, but i thought that had a 4 prong outlet to it... someone please clear me up on this, thanks

Can some one help me with the ammount of money you save switching to 240v?

I am running a 1000w light off 120 right now. If I switch it to 240 will I cut my costs in half or at all?

Thanks
Peace

im looking to add service into my garage, which will become my workshop. i want the garage to have its own breaker box. my welders runs on 220, so that needs a line, and then i would like a 3 breakers of outlets, and a breaker for the lighting. what should i run from the house to the garage? any other imput needed ill be glad to fill you in more. thank you

Cliddy said:

Can some one help me with the ammount of money you save switching to 240v?
I am running a 1000w light off 120 right now. If I switch it to 240 will I cut my costs in half or at all?

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you will be drawing the same watts either way so it wont change your bill

h8popo said:

im looking to add service into my garage, which will become my workshop. i want the garage to have its own breaker box. my welders runs on 220, so that needs a line, and then i would like a 3 breakers of outlets, and a breaker for the lighting. what should i run from the house to the garage? any other imput needed ill be glad to fill you in more. thank you

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consider a sub panel so you can run several breakers in the shop,a 220 for the welder,a 15 amp for lights& another 1 or 2 20 amps breakers for plugs.

So I'm thinking of taking a plunge of indoor gardening and one of main concerns is cost.

I want to run 600w system. Does the light bulb & ballast make it now 1200watts or 1.2kwof power being used?

I read somewhere the bulb is using 600watts and the ballast uses about 15% so in total your using about 690watts is this correct?

I'd appreciate any help on this.

Cliddy said:

Can some one help me with the ammount of money you save switching to 240v?

I am running a 1000w light off 120 right now. If I switch it to 240 will I cut my costs in half or at all?

Thanks
Peace

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About 20 cents a year. There is a slight efficiency to 240 over 120, but it more theoretically then a measurable in a bill.

So in reality, no savings

tha dankster said:

it's on an isolated circuit. when the air unit cuts on, the light cycles off and comes right back on. i know this to be bad for plants as well as the bulb itself. someone told me it could be the bulb is getting old....thanks for you reply.. sorry if my format is a little off, kinda new to forums. thanks

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Isolated doesn't mean a lot if the house voltage is dropping. (the AC, if central, is on its own dedicated circuit)

Disrupting the light on is not much a prob. The prob is interrupting the dark cycle.
The ballast/bulb won't like the drop outs.

Yes, this is true. I found a 400W its about 10% on top of the bulb wattage (same for a 150W)

The digital ballasts claims for the energy savings are *only* for what the ballast uses.
So, lets say its a 400W, and a inductive ballast uses another 40W. Thats 440W.
A digital with a 25% energy savings claim means 400W for bulb plus (40W - 25% = 30W) so 430W out the door.

So if the energy savings is the only factor for choosing the digital, its not worth it. (there are other reason for digital)

bratva said:

So I'm thinking of taking a plunge of indoor gardening and one of main concerns is cost.

I want to run 600w system. Does the light bulb & ballast make it now 1200watts or 1.2kwof power being used?

I read somewhere the bulb is using 600watts and the ballast uses about 15% so in total your using about 690watts is this correct?

I'd appreciate any help on this.

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Proheto,

It seems like you might be over complicating the setup but without knowing more info I cannot be sure.

Why dont you have 3 fans hooked up from the lung room independently to the 3 other chambers?

It would take 2 extra fans but might be cheaper than trying to rig an *or* circuit and possibly prevent electrical problems...

For instance, what would happen if 2 or all 3 fans needed to run at the same time?

Again, if possible I would use 3 fans to vent into the lung chamber at the top and have passive intakes at the bottom for fresh air return.

Hi, is this really true?!?! That's great!
I have a question regarding a 150w magnetic ballast I purchased.
I cannot look up the wiring diagram for it as I can't even look up the one for the serial # it came with let alone the one with the serial # it DIDN'T come with (it said it came with a 480&120v tap on that model, it came with 120,208,240,277 or somethin like that.

Well, I am down to wiring it.. So far I have this, is this right? and if so I have some questions..


The purple lines I drew, which goes to which? I thought I read somewhere online that one goes to another and it'll work the other way but shorten the life of the ballast/bulb. I can't seem to find it now but is that true?

Other than that does that all look right to you? everything going to the right place? If you have any questions I know I'm terrible at drawing so please ask =b

Thank you...

I just got a nice free sealed reflector with a socket and cord thats connected directly into a 400 watt ballast.(its actually wired into the ballast) does anyone know if i can just cut it free from the ballast and wire a hydrofarm adapter to it so i can plug it into my 600 watt electronic ballast

Yes, as long as you bypass completely the ballast on the inside and wire it so it is just the socket to the wire going out to the electrical ballast it should be fine.. As long as the reflector and socket are meant to handle a lamp with at least as much wattage & current as the one you are planning to use!

Hi brick,
I was wondering if you could explain how to wire a computer fan?I have an idea,but not sure if it would work.Could you take a universal adapter and splice it together with the fan,or is there more to it than that?
Thanks

whasup brick
i took two lamps apart to get the wiring. i got four cfl's goin what i did was i taped into one wire to connect the other light and tapped into the other for the other light so basically two lamps powerin four light sockets its workin just fine the only thing is i connected the other two lights with speaker wire. is this ok???

Thundernuts:
(I do this all the time)
Find a DC adapter with the same voltage as the fan (eg usually 12v, but you can use a 5v-9v one out of necessity the fan will just power slower, i'd reccomend not cutting voltage by more than half as this can overstress the fan motor and cause it to fail sooner)
The fan's usually have 3 wires for PC fans, 2 voltage 1 speed, the speed is usually yellow and the +/- red/black. Usually the line that's not solid black in the adapter is the positive (like if two are black but one has a white line on it it's usually positive)

Piffs: The speaker wire _COULD_ be fine but I wouldn't risk it. Get some 14-16 guage wire from home depot and rig it up right!! =) (or whatever guage I am NOT experienced on that as far as safety, I usually just ask the person in home depot and then ask him if it's okay to use overkill in whatever situation I'm in, lol!)

Hope this helps!