Strange electrical question ;?D

Okay, so I have a lot of xp with home remodeling and such, but my weak area is electrical, so while my logical mind says this will work, on the other hand I don't want to burn my house down, you know how insurance companies can be finicky that way, lol.

I have a finished basement which I really would prefer not to tear into if possible. I've been using two 20A circuits to run my lights and fans (2x1000w ballasts and 2x600w ballasts plus 2 fans and a dehumidifier). One of the circuits is from the adjoining room - I used the outlet as sort of a junction box and poked the wire through the wall into the grow room so that I'd have another circuit and avoid overloading the other. The lights have been running on their own timers, which is a pita and has caused a few problems (one stuck on recently and ran for 18 hrs before I caught in week 7 of a 10 week flower reg and I was just lucky nothing hermied on me

But now I'm kind of between grows and I want to rewire the room so that all the ballasts run off of one 40A light controller but of course I can't use either wire by itself to do that, and as I said I'd rather not have to tear down the ceiling and run new wires if I can find another way. Sooooo, what I am thinking is to use BOTH existing lines and tie them together into the controller, then at the breaker box tie both wires together again and hook them to a single 40A breaker (being very careful to not get any wires crossed in the process, lol). Does anyone with some electrical xp think it'll work?

Edit: I should add that I would do that in reverse order, starting by disconnecting the wires at the breaker box, the wire up the light controller, THEN hook up the wires to the new 40A breaker ;?D

Ask @SnapsProvolone he will chime in you can take a 110 and turn it into a 220v and have plenty of light power with out rewiring to properly run a light controller box amd not burn your house down . He has told another person before and i am sure he will tell ya again he is a good person to ask for questions. Unless i read wrong but he is a smart guy

You're wanting to tie two together as to create one wire, right? If so, I don't think you should do that. If you have 20A now, it's 12ga wire. Even though you've bonded the wires, you still have two paths both rated at only 20A, so it's a fire hazard. Each one could become a fuse. You need to run a #8 cable to run 40A.

Now I'm stoned, and I might not understand exactly what you're asking, so take this with a grain of salt. Snaps is our resident electrician here, I'm sure he'll be able to give you something more definitive

-spek

Yeah, basically I'm trying to spread the load out between two wires. In reality I don't think I need more than a 30A breaker so 10ga will probably do, but yeah running a new wire is going to suck for extra expense, work and time <sigh>

If you have an existing dedicated 20 amp gfi circuit, with no other loads on the circuit, especially lighting/ bath fan etc... then we could convert the 120v feed to 240v. Flip the breaker and make sure there is nothing else that's dead to ensure you don't plug a razor into a 240v receptacle.

Start by swapping the gfi with a 240 v receptacle to prevent accidents. Do this with breaker off. Red tape marking white wire as hot is smart.

Replace the single pole breaker in the panel with a double pole of same amperage (wire gauge dictates ampacity).

Disconnect the asociated neutral fro the neutral bus. Make sure its the right one.

Put red tape on it and connect to the new breaker along with the black wire from the old breaker.

If done properly when you flip in the breaker, the supply to the receptacle will be 240v.

Huh, I didn't know you could do that or I would have bought a 240v controller, lol. As is mine's only a 120v so don't think this will help So I take it you agree that my original idea is a no go?
Well I suppose I could buy a different light controller as that's cheaper than remodeling my basement (again ;?). So if I do as you advised and I get a 240v light controller, I suppose I'd have to change my ballasts as well....

i wish it was that simple i had to run 8-3 cable to my rooms with a custom sub breaker panel to power everything lol

WHOA, so after some research I think I understand a bit better what I need to do. So I just looked at all my ballasts, and while I knew that the 2 1000w ballasts could use either 120v or 240v I didn't realize that the 2 600w digitals could also (they don't have the optional socket so I'm guessing that it somehow auto-detects the current ).

Plus I just found out that the ballasts control the output to the bulbs so I don't have to buy 240v bulbs, lol, sweet!! Amazing that I never discovered that in all the years I've been growing but then I've always just thought it was easier/cheaper to stick with 120v. Guess an old dog can learn new tricks, just takes a loooong while, lol.

Sooo, if I just switch to a dedicated 240v breaker, then I can keep the 12ga 20A wire cuz I'll only be using 15 amps total - 5A for each of the 1K lights and 2.5A for each of the 600W lights right??? That even leaves 5A to spare for the two fans ;?D

A lot of people around here just use surface mount emt conduit when they don't want to disturb walls and run new electric. You could do it pretty cleanly if you wanted.

- Jiji

fearnoevil said:

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Sooo, if I just switch to a dedicated 240v breaker, then I can keep the 12ga 20A wire cuz I'll only be using 15 amps total - 5A for each of the 1K lights and 2.5A for each of the 600W lights right??? That even leaves 5A to spare for the two fans ;?D

Click to expand...

You have 240v fans?

16 amps is your limit on a 20a feed.

SnapsProvolone said:

You have 240v fans?

16 amps is your limit on a 20a feed.

Click to expand...

DOH!! Still thinking in 120V....
Thanks a lot for your input Snaps, I believe this will solve my problem and I'll be sure not to overload that circuit ;?D

Jiji, yeah I suppose that's another option, just my finicky nature missing the obvious, lol.

Parallel wiring may work and is permitted under certain circumstances, usually much larger services where multiple smaller conductors are easier to install. but I'm not going to advise this as both conductors for a phase must be in the same raceway, I hardly think this will be the case, however it's up to you.