Can someone please help me with a simple relay.

[Squeeky]

Ok I know this is simple electrical work, but I always try and check myself with the holy board.

I am using Pl-l bulbs and my ballast have a limitation of 3 55w, so I'm going to run 2 for veg and 4 for flower. My trick is getting the one bulb to run on 12/12, while the others are 18/6.

I believe I need a 120vac relay, and relay mount. It is simply a matter of running 120v from my 12/12 timer to the relay. Cutting the lamp lead and placing the relay between ballast and lamp. Would I have to do the same with grounding (yellow) lead or can I leave that connected all the time.

If anyone has an example or reference to a relay that would work for my situation please let me know, I'm sure its simple but I am currently enjoying the fruits of my labor.

 

[Stay Puft]

This is meant to be friendly:
Please reword your question when you are not enjoying the fruits of your labor. I will admit my reading comprehension skills are lacking, but damb man.... I have no idea what you are actually asking about/for?

Perhaps you just want 2 timers...just a guess based on the good ole "magic-8-ball".

 

[geopolitical]

Yeah, I'm with Puft here.

List this.

What ballast(s) are you running, what is it rated for?

Do you want to just switch the ballast output between several bulbs dynamically?

Example: I have a ballast rated at (4) 40w bulbs, which is also rated to run 3, 2 or 1 bulbs as well. I want it to run 3 of the bulbs for 18 hours, and one of them for 12.

While it's completely possible to do this, it'll often end up being more expensive to set up the system than to buy a basic ballast/bulb/timer combo for the 12/12 portion and if your ballast fails, you lose everything, rather than having built in redundancy.

Redundancy good. Single point of failure for multiple systems bad.

 

[Observer Tom]

So.. I think you mean you have one ballast that can power three 55w bulbs? You want to run one bulb 12/12 and two at 18/6, using a relay to control when the various bulbs light?

I suggest making a simple drawing to illustrate your setup, but.. If I got it right, I suggest a simpler method: cut your ballast-to-socket cords and splice a 120v household plug into the line so that you can insert a simple timer into the line.

So it would go like this:

[ ballast ] ----- = [ timer ] = ------ [ socket/bulb ]

That would let you remove the timer to return to normal 24/0 usage, or any combination of on/off you can think of. If your ballast has multiple outputs you can do the same thing to each line and have complete control over each light individually.

Relays would work, but why bother?

 

[Squeeky]

Observer Tom, gets a cookie! He is correct I apologize for my original post.

Yes I have a ballast that runs three lamps.

I have the ballast plugged into a wall outlet timer and running at 18/6 for veg. I would like to run 1 of the 3 leads at 12/12.

I like tom's idea, however don't most timers switch on/off the VAC? I just want it open the circuit of the lamp lead, and close when off.

 

[Observer Tom]

I don't know exactly how the multiple lamp ballasts work but I assume they would pull full power regardless of how many of the lamps are on. From a power consumption standpoint I don't think it will matter, especially with just a 55w lamp.

I believe the timer would switch both the hot and neutral wires. There may be some manufacturers that only switch the hot wire, but my water heater sized timers do both the hot and neutral, but not the ground of course.

Hope that helps. On a side note, how do you like that 3 way ballast? Like I said I haven't seen one in person, I know they are out there but I don't know much about them.