Blowing fuses

onwi

onwi

New Member
hey guys just hoping you could help me out here...

i was watching a grow vid and it mentioned circuit breakers.

i'm in the process of extending my house and at the same time rebuilding my grow room into an actual specific room solely used for the purpose of growing. it previously didn't make a difference running one hid and a fan etc. but in my new grow room im hoping to at least put in 3 hid, most likely a combination of 400 or 600w hps and metal halide. ie. with switchable ballasts and changing the proportion of the lights according to growth stage.
accompanying this im hoping to run flourescents to support seedlings etc.

in the video it mentioned that if you run too many appliances on a circuit, and the number of amps exceeds the limit, the circuit will break or you will blow a fuse.

is there a way around this?

or is it just better to put everything in the new room to a new circuit?

how would you do it?

BTW the room isn't there yet. still in discussion about prices etc. of extending but i want to cover all aspects of this before we go ahead with the plans.

thanks guys
 
With all that I would grab a heavy breaker, that way you know you aren't going to be stressing one that may be too small. When it comes to electricity I personally try to beef up stuff to support more than I am going to use. When I made my flouro light rack I used heavier wire than suggested, bought a timer that supports more ams ect.
 
ohhhhhh so you can decrease the amt of amps with thicker wire and a better timer? i thought all this circuitry stuff was within the walls so i'd have to call an electrician or some shit.

but yeah thanks for replying brett2themax
 
No, you never decrease the amps, you are letting the same amount of juice travel more safely. So instead of a 20 amp breaker buy a 60 or what ever they come in, I've never bought breakers. And I suggest calling an electrician, if you know some one you trust tell them to wire it heavy because you plan on running a lot of electronics in there. But not knowing exactly what you are doing with electricity is extremely dangerous and you could cause an electrical fire if done incorrectly. Then your addition and beautiful new grow room is a pile of rubbish.
 
ohhhhhh. thanks for the help brett2themax and dank. really really appreciate it.

so these wires are the wires within the house? or the wires of the appliance?
 
14 gage wire is rated for 15 amps. It's a good rule of thumb to only load a circuit up to 80% of what it can handle. Therefore, you can have about 1440 watts on (1) 15 amp circuit. A 20 amp circuit can handle about 2000 watts at 80%. Running a 10 gage wire (which is rated for 30 amps) for regular receptacles is not a good idea. A normal receptacle is only rated for maximum 20 amps. So if your pulling 25 amps through that 30 amp ciruit you run the REAL risk of that receptacle burning up and causing a fire. You have to keep in mind how long your gonna be pulling that amount of power through your wires. 12, 18 or even 24 hours is alot of time to be maxing or even over maxing your wires potential.

As for upsizing a breaker 5 amps. Generally I wouldn't have a problem with that. BUT, Let's say you have 14 gage wire which is rated for 15 amps. If you change the breaker to 20 amps your now allowing 20 amps to flow through that little 14 gage wire. Generally its not really a big deal. But, remember how long your lights will be on at any given time during the day. If your pulling 20 amps through a 14 gage wire for 12 or even 18 hours a day, that wire is gonna heat up and eventually break down. Which can cause a fire.

If you only plan on running 3 lights. You could run (3) 600 watt lights with no problems at all on a 20 amp circuit at 120 volts.

As far as running 240 volts instead of 120. Yeah 240 is more effecient, but not by much. a 400 watt light generally pulls about 3.5 amps at 120 volts. It would pull about 1.7 amps PER LEG (2 legs with 240 volts) on a 240 volt system. The nice thing about 240 volt lights is that you can put twice the amount of lights on (1) 20 amp circuit.


So, If it were me wiring your room, I would run

20 amp circuit for lights on a T101 Timer
20 amp circuit for AC/Heat
20 amp circuit for fans and miscellaneaus.
If you think there's a possibility of adding more lights in the future I would run a spare 20 amp circuit too.
 
Stix said:
As far as running 240 volts instead of 120. Yeah 240 is more effecient, but not by much. a 400 watt light generally pulls about 3.5 amps at 120 volts. It would pull about 1.7 amps PER LEG (2 legs with 240 volts) on a 240 volt system. The nice thing about 240 volt lights is that you can put twice the amount of lights on (1) 20 amp circuit.
Click to expand...

so is this why a 240v 400 watt HPs runs a little cooler than the 120v version?

Bagz :peace:
 
Stix said:
14 gage wire is rated for 15 amps. It's a good rule of thumb to only load a circuit up to 80% of what it can handle. Therefore, you can have about 1440 watts on (1) 15 amp circuit. A 20 amp circuit can handle about 2000 watts at 80%. Running a 10 gage wire (which is rated for 30 amps) for regular receptacles is not a good idea. A normal receptacle is only rated for maximum 20 amps. So if your pulling 25 amps through that 30 amp ciruit you run the REAL risk of that receptacle burning up and causing a fire. You have to keep in mind how long your gonna be pulling that amount of power through your wires. 12, 18 or even 24 hours is alot of time to be maxing or even over maxing your wires potential.

As for upsizing a breaker 5 amps. Generally I wouldn't have a problem with that. BUT, Let's say you have 14 gage wire which is rated for 15 amps. If you change the breaker to 20 amps your now allowing 20 amps to flow through that little 14 gage wire. Generally its not really a big deal. But, remember how long your lights will be on at any given time during the day. If your pulling 20 amps through a 14 gage wire for 12 or even 18 hours a day, that wire is gonna heat up and eventually break down. Which can cause a fire.

If you only plan on running 3 lights. You could run (3) 600 watt lights with no problems at all on a 20 amp circuit at 120 volts.

As far as running 240 volts instead of 120. Yeah 240 is more effecient, but not by much. a 400 watt light generally pulls about 3.5 amps at 120 volts. It would pull about 1.7 amps PER LEG (2 legs with 240 volts) on a 240 volt system. The nice thing about 240 volt lights is that you can put twice the amount of lights on (1) 20 amp circuit.


So, If it were me wiring your room, I would run

20 amp circuit for lights on a T101 Timer
20 amp circuit for AC/Heat
20 amp circuit for fans and miscellaneaus.
If you think there's a possibility of adding more lights in the future I would run a spare 20 amp circuit too.
Click to expand...

OMG. This helped explain ALOT. thanks SO much stix. u rock man:headbanger:

i think i'll go with ur recommendation. i'll forward those specifications to the electrician when building commences. :D thank you so much again stix. you have my undying gratitude :p.


oh and btw, is there anyth8ing out there i can read or look up that would help with my overall understanding of general electrics?

thanks again stix

to newbiegrower: haha its got me scared too. :p
 
Smokin.Moose said:
Onwi, I run my lights through an 18amp fuse dedicated to the grow room. In Australia you should find this adequate.
Click to expand...

really? so 18 amsp shoudl be enough?

haha i just hope i wont burn down my house or my neighbours. probably more the neighbours because they're innocent victims LOL...

but yeah. thanks moose :D. :headbanger:


im at a loss at how to find out what my electric company charges per watt...

how did you find urs out?
 
Ring your local power company and ask them for a cost per watt of power and they will gladly oblige. Our building codes here in Oz make it fairly safe as long as you don't overload your circuits. I once ran 3x400W lamps off an 18 watt fuse. Just get your sparkie to put in a circuit breaker and you should be ok. Good luck matey! I am so glad you have gotten the good word from our members!
 
Smokin.Moose said:
Ring your local power company and ask them for a cost per watt of power and they will gladly oblige. Our building codes here in Oz make it fairly safe as long as you don't overload your circuits. I once ran 3x400W lamps off an 18 watt fuse. Just get your sparkie to put in a circuit breaker and you should be ok. Good luck matey! I am so glad you have gotten the good word from our members!
Click to expand...

yeah i'll ring them or something :). hoepfully my electrical wiring etc. isn't too shoddy...my house is approx. 18 yrs? i think. so yeah shoodn't be too bad...

hmmm do you reckon the electrician will find it suspicious? i'm very paranoid about bringing people in to do things relating to growing...

just gets me on edge...


thanks for ur help moose. much appreciated. :) haha its really amazing the amount of knowledge that lies within our community...
:headbanger:
 
I really wouldn't risk letting your electrician wire your grow room. If he ain't cool with it and becomes suspicious. Your gonna be busted too fast.

What kinda room are you using for your grow room? Is it a bedroom? Or is it gonna be in your basement? If it's in your basement you could just tell him you plan on having your own workshop. Have him run 20 amp circuits to different locations where you think you'll need receptacles. If he asks if you plan on running 2 different machines at the same time tell him yes. That way he can't try and talk you into (1) circuit for everything.
 
Right now its just a plan. what im still at the planning stage of extending the second floor in my house. and i plan to incorporate a grow room. it'll probably just a separate empty room hopefully.

i'll probably give the construction dudes the specs u recommended. but im not to o sure about that in case they get sus, so maybe after the room completed i'll find a way of fixing up the electrical work.

i don tthink i can possibly do it myself because i have 0 experience with electrics apart from soldering wires together in highschool LOL.

thanks again stix
 
please keep in mind that if you electrical panel is already to its limit...adding higher amp breakers will not help as you will have to do a whole panel upgrade. jmo
 
I am installing sub panels and wiring in 240 volts to my room this weekend i hope. Someone should really delete or LABEL in huge letters Brett2theMax's post as false information. The suggesting a bigger circuit without proper wiring is just downright scary.

"please keep in mind that if you electrical panel is already to its limit...adding higher amp breakers will not help as you will have to do a whole panel upgrade. jmo"

Yup, in the US most houses have a 100 amp max limit service, you can upgrade ur service to 200 amp for $$$$
 
Sweet bro, I might have an electrician come check out my work. I purchased a bunch of junk at home depot today for 48$ - Twin Skinny 20 amp breaker, 25 feet 12-2 wire outdoor cable, clamps, voltage tester electronic, handy boxes-plates- and 240 recetacles x 4 ==

I was gonna do it today, but then it started raining snowing for a minute, then I smoked a bowl and got lazy, then I started to get discouraged because I couldnt figure out how to cut the main breaker because I didnt have one. The house is also old so the 120 stuff has fuses? I can pull the mian fuse and it shuts all 120 off in house, but 240 is still on. The guy who wired the box didnt use a main breaker, but instead wired it to sub feeds? and from the diagram, it looks like they insect every breaker, so every breaker must be off to totally shut off current. Or so i think, think this is old bus style?

Either way, when I shut down all the "main breakers" - everythign in house is off and the meter comes to a stand still. I'm gonna go in tommorow with voltage tester and have a look. Hopefully if it's fully de activated, I can get my 240 volts to my grow room.
 

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