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

budleydoright said:

Rather than mess with your wiring like that. Why don't you see if you can get half space breakers, which is 2-15 amp breakers that only take up one space. I have a 2 space breaker that has 2 220v for a total of 4 breakers. I broke the bond between the 2 30 amps breakers and run those to my 110v ballasts, the 220v 20A is used for my 18k windowshaker AC. I'm pretty confident that most brands make them.
While combining circuits isn't absolutely going to cause you problems, it is absolutely bypassing part a what should be a well engineered system designed to be pretty much idiot proof.

A breaker panel can be like a checking account, it can be real easy to write more checks than you have $ to cover. Be carefull.

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think that post was from 3 months ago. also, i think they were talking about half sapce breakers. isn't that what they mean by the tandem breakers?

good hash!

budleydoright said:

good hash!

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lmao! i love hash.

Hi bricktown,

I was hoping to answer some electrical questions for me. I'm planning on running a 3 x 6 flood and drain with 1200-1800w of light. My house currently has 100A service. I have 2 slots on my panel that are free and have another that is only attached to an outdoor outlet. I wanted to have a sub-panel dedicated for the room. In your opinion, what is the max amps I should have in sub-panel. I am also considering running A/C (8,000-12000 btu's) in the room until I can run a water cooled system. I'm not an "electrical" guy, but my intuition says I should stick to no more than 40A sub panel.

CanniCastro420 said:

Hi bricktown,

I was hoping to answer some electrical questions for me. I'm planning on running a 3 x 6 flood and drain with 1200-1800w of light. My house currently has 100A service. I have 2 slots on my panel that are free and have another that is only attached to an outdoor outlet. I wanted to have a sub-panel dedicated for the room. In your opinion, what is the max amps I should have in sub-panel. I am also considering running A/C (8,000-12000 btu's) in the room until I can run a water cooled system. I'm not an "electrical" guy, but my intuition says I should stick to no more than 40A sub panel.

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a lot is gonna depend on the draw in your house while the lights are on. i mean you only have a 100amp service. so if you go trying to pull 25-30amps when the house a/c's are on and the hot water heater is running and you've got a big stereo and tv going then you might have some problems. need to figure out what you are normally drawing on your loadcenter at peak. get a multimeter and use that to test your draw when you have the normal electrical stuff running (i.e. tv's, a/c, heater, etc...). if you are wiring this from scratch then go with 240v ballasts if you can. would reduce your amperage draw in half for those 2-3 lights.

My buddy is coming by my house to do the test later in the wk. In the meantime, this same buddy says since i have 3 free slots on my panel, to just take two slots and fill it with, say a 60A breaker,then run sub-panel to 60A breaker. I don't have a/c for house (live in NE part of country), and hot water comes from my oil heat furnace. I did plan on run the light circuit on 240v tho.

CanniCastro420 said:

My buddy is coming by my house to do the test later in the wk. In the meantime, this same buddy says since i have 3 free slots on my panel, to just take two slots and fill it with, say a 60A breaker,then run sub-panel to 60A breaker. I don't have a/c for house (live in NE part of country), and hot water comes from my oil heat furnace. I did plan on run the light circuit on 240v tho.

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if you are running your lights at 240v then 60amps would be a waste. get a 40amp subpanel and that will be more than enough. running 1,800w at 240v pulls about 8amps. that would leave you safely 24amps on a 40amp panel after the lights were accounted for. more than enough.

nuglets said:

if you are running your lights at 240v then 60amps would be a waste. get a 40amp subpanel and that will be more than enough. running 1,800w at 240v pulls about 8amps. that would leave you safely 24amps on a 40amp panel after the lights were accounted for. more than enough.

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Nice. More than enough left over to supplement room with a/c. Room will be 11' x 6'-7 1/2" x 7'. Figured use small a/c 8,000 btu's window unit. until I can go water cooled, anyways. When I do go water cooled, I planned on burying a 55-75 gallon rez about 3 ' or so. Ground temps in my area stay @ around 55 degrees at that depth. In theory, shouldn't need a chiller. So the inline pump would be the next big energy drawer. But even with that being said, I should have have plenty of options.

CanniCastro420 said:

Nice. more than enough left over to supplement room with A/C. Room will be 11' x 6'-7 1/2" x 7'. Figured use small a/c 8,000 btu's window unit. until I can go water cooled, anyways. When I do go water cooled, I won't be using a chiller, (going geo-thermal route) so the inline pump would be the next big energy drawer. But even with that being said, I should have have plenty of options.

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you'll be more than fine. especially if water cooling allows you to eliminate the a/c unit. with those portable a/c units you might need a dehumidifier too. not sure what you environment is like. just that a/c units only dehumidify when they are running. during the dark cycle if they do not run very oftern then you will have humidity spikes which can lead to a bunch of problems. an 8,000btu a/c on 120v will only pull about 9amps so even with that and the 3 lights you'll still only be pulling half the recommended limit of 32amps off the subpanel. you'll have plenty of additional draw if need be.

good luck man. water cooling is awesome. i run a 2hp chiller. just bought a 5hp self contained. getting it delivered in a few weeks.

Is the electrician still in the house?

I'm going to build my own led panel. Just wondering what else i would need? So far iv'e come to needing a circuit board, resistors for every led, the diodes themselves, i'm a bit troubled by how to attach a heatsink plate to the circuit board then the heatsink behind with the cpu fan on top. There will be no housing to it because this will take even more time. I'm just not sure on what else i'd need to wire it up? Don't worry about the electricity side to it, i will find someone eventually if i burn out so many board but most of all i'm doing this for fun... So what would i need to make my own LED light panel?

Hey Bricktown thanks for taking the time to help out.I have a set up in a basement room and have used all the available power and need to run two more 1000w hps and a few other goodies(brewstation,osc. fans).can i add a fuse into my box and just run from my breaker box to the room ?I am very thankful for your suggestions.

bfb1999 said:

Hey Bricktown thanks for taking the time to help out.I have a set up in a basement room and have used all the available power and need to run two more 1000w hps and a few other goodies(brewstation,osc. fans).can i add a fuse into my box and just run from my breaker box to the room ?I am very thankful for your suggestions.

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you just need to make sure that you have enough available draw on your panel. you most likely have enough room but if you are in an older house with a 100amp service then maybe not. or if you have a pool and jacuzzi and a bunch of other equipment that draws a lot of power then you may wanna check out what your electrical draw is with a multi meter.

if you are straight then you can run additional circuits to that room on a new breaker(s). my suggestion would be to run a subpanel to the room. would be a little more expensive but much more efficient. you could save a little money on the installation by running your ballasts 240v. that way you would only need a 20-30amp 240v breaker and subpanel. plus a smaller gauge wire. might save you $50.

good luck man.

Is it possible to seperate bulb n socket from ballast on a "bay" light??

Yes, I believe there;s thread on this site or one of the others with a nice DIY.

Hello I'm interested in building a shed 20' x 16'. I'm thinking 3 ton split a/c,and 10 600 watts or 10 1000 watts plus all the randomness. My existing house has a 100 amp panel and its full. Id like two 20 amp 120v circuits for randomness. A 50 amp 240v circuit for lights and a 50 amp for the a/c.thats 140 amps.??? My question is do I have to upgrade the existing panel to 300-400 amp before I do it???And how much money do you think I should have set aside for the electrician?

coben said:

Hello I'm interested in building a shed 20' x 16'. I'm thinking 3 ton split a/c,and 10 600 watts or 10 1000 watts plus all the randomness. My existing house has a 100 amp panel and its full. Id like two 20 amp 120v circuits for randomness. A 50 amp 240v circuit for lights and a 50 amp for the a/c.thats 140 amps.??? My question is do I have to upgrade the existing panel to 300-400 amp before I do it???And how much money do you think I should have set aside for the electrician?

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6000w at 240v would pull 25amps and 10,000w at 240v would pull 42amps. you need to oversize the breaker by 20-25%. so for 6000w you would get a 40amp breaker and for 10,000w a 60amp breaker. chances are you will need more than 2 120v circuits. also, a 3 ton minisplit will probably be wired 240v and wouldn't use near 50amps. probably somewhere around 15amps on a 25-30amp breaker.

if you have a 100amp service in your house they just aren't going to give you another meter or a 400amp service which is 3 phase power. what you will most likely have to do is get your house service upgraded to 200-250amp service. then pull a 125amp subpanel off that service for your shed. it's almost impossible to guess what that will cost but it's gonna be a few thousand to have everything wired up. it just really depends on your current panel, the distance to your shed from your panel now, and how much the utility company is willing to cover. usually the utility company will install the new meter and even run the upgraded cable from that meter to your house junction box or breaker panel. everything after that will have to be installed by your electrician on your dime. would need a lot more info to figure out a rough cost though.

i am not sure if this has been answered before but can you put a 1000 watt magnetic hps ballast in the attic area. i am trying to keep heat out of the grow room and i have easy access to the attic. a few holes in the ceiling dry wall and i can run all the plugs where i need them. thanks

711grower said:

i am not sure if this has been answered before but can you put a 1000 watt magnetic hps ballast in the attic area. i am trying to keep heat out of the grow room and i have easy access to the attic. a few holes in the ceiling dry wall and i can run all the plugs where i need them. thanks

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i don't see why not. that's why most ballasts come with long light cords...so you can keep them out of the grow room. if your attic is hot just put a small fan up there to blow on it. like all electronics, ballasts run more efficient and will last longer when they run at cooler temps. good luck.

Ive asked around on this site for awhile but no one could or would answear,so this is my last resort.I want to wire a powerstrip to a relay to run my pumps off of,does anyone have any write ups or any info oin this,I would really appericate the help.

say what so when the pumps go off something else come on?


the way you are phrasing it sounds like you just need a timer, what do your need a "relay" for and what do you mean by it?