Growroom Electricity and Wiring

[GolfProGrower]

Wow, that is a really cool idea! Thanks for the link Rives. And I believe you are correct about the new ballasts being 'universal' based on my recent searches comparing prices. I've got some thinking to do about what my future plans are and which way I want to go with this.

 

[Tyga]

Picking up an 11,000 BTU portable Air conditioner tomorrow.. I think it pulls around 1100W and just curious if I will experience any start up kinda power rush that will cause me to trip a breaker. It will be the only piece of equipment on the circui

 

[greenmatter]

Picking up an 11,000 BTU portable Air conditioner tomorrow.. I think it pulls around 1100W and just curious if I will experience any start up kinda power rush that will cause me to trip a breaker. It will be the only piece of equipment on the circui

you should be O.K. even on a 15 amp circuit .......... you are really close to an 80% load on a 15 amp so i would make sure the AC is the only thing on it

 

[Tyga]

you should be O.K. even on a 15 amp circuit .......... you are really close to an 80% load on a 15 amp so i would make sure the AC is the only thing on it

Ya that's all that will be on it, Plus it will be hooked up to an environmental controller so it will only kick on for small periods of time

 

[LandscapeEscape]

4k magnetic ballasts. 30k mini split. Santa fe advance dehuey. Moving my spot and this will be my first time having to run a sub pannel. Previous to this i ran a pigtail off the outlet for the electric stove for the lights and used wall outlets for the rest. Its a standalone garage and id be running about 150 feet from the main breaker.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[rives]

Probably the first thing that you need to determine is if there is adequate capacity at the main panel for what you want to add. How big is the main breaker and are there any spaces left for adding more breakers?

As far as the garage sub, do you have any aspirations to go larger in the future? Are you going to be doing other things in the garage besides the grow? Are you going to need to heat it in the winter?

Just for kicking things around, I would probably want a minimum of a 60 amp service in the garage. With a one-way distance of 150', the voltage drop is going to be enough that the wire size will need to be kicked up to #4.

 

[LandscapeEscape]

Rives thank you for responding. You seem to be the resident expert here and your advice has always appeared to be concise and accurate.

There are available breakers on the main. Also i believe there is a 30amp line to the garage right now. The wiring inside the garage is sketchy to say the least, so im hoping to salvage this as power for etc's. With the space available i think the biggest i could go is 6k. Im hoping to bump up to 6 in the fall when temps are cooler, and i would like for the sub to accomadate for this. The garage is only being used as a grow and I doubt heat will be required in the winter. I framed up a 17x12grow flower and 12x8 veg with 2x6's and r-19 faced insulation all the way around.

 

[rives]

Happy to help where I can, LE. I'm not that familiar with air conditioners, but a quick search showed that a 30k btu mini-split pulls very close to 20 amps of 240v. 6k of lighting (with ballast losses) will be very close to 30 amps of 240v. Just with those two components you will have a 60 amp service loaded right to the eyeballs - you are only allowed 80% of the breaker rating for continuous loads (defined as anything running 3 hours or more).

With that in mind, you would probably be better off with a 100 amp service. #2 wire will work for the load and the voltage drop, so both hot legs and the neutral should be #2 and the ground wire would be #8. The sub-panel should have separate busses for the grounds and the neutrals, and the neutral buss should not be bonded to ground except at the main panel. The additional buss is frequently sold separately as optional gear at the big box stores. You will also need a ground rod at the remote location.

If you are going to run the feeders in conduit, you will need at least 1-1/4" conduit, but larger will make the job of pulling it in much easier. THHN insulation is much easier to pull than some of the alternatives. Also, remember that you are only allowed the equivalent of 360 degrees of bends in the conduit, and you use up half of that going into and out of the ground.

 

[Captain Bonez]

going to throw this in here quickly, see if anybody is able to lend a hand

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=239307

 

[dragunn]

how many amps do i have to work with? 3 phase power,480 volts.

 

[TribalSeeds]

.

 

[disciple]

 

[disciple]

 

[disciple]

 

[notorious646]

if your doing it big why not run a line straight from your box? 12gauge romex would be plenty plenty

 

[rives]

Hey Rives,

Doesn't this guy also have to install an earth ground in the garage (a ground rod into the soil to ground the whole building) since it's a separate building?

Yes he does. I mentioned that up above in the second paragraph.

 

[OreoGrows]

im having an issue with a friends grow. he has a 8x4 tent with two thousand watt lights and a 240 cfm fan and an 8 inch sungrow 700cfm fan. he grow would have to be concealed in a room in his apartment, we dont know what kind of circuit breakers are in use, there are two electrical outlets in the room. would they both be the same ciruit? whats the normal load for a room in a house or apartment building? its a three family home. i had just dont want to blow a circuit breaker by plugging both lights into one outlet, would it make a difference if i plugged it into the other one? does two outlets mean two circuits? sorry for all the newb questions but i thought if anywhere this was the place for them

 

[avant gardener]

need more info man.

1. for starters, are your lights 120 or 240v?

2. get a cheap tester at the home despot and turn off one breaker at a time, making a list of what it turns off. this is good info to have anyway.

3. there's no such thing as a "normal load." it depends on what you're running. also, a breaker probably won't control everything in one room. more probably, one breaker will control the lighting for a couple rooms, and another series of breakers will control the receptacles. once you tag everything you won't need to guess about how much load you can handle. the rating is branded right on the breaker.

4. you can't just switch out breakers for bigger ones. the load a circuit can handle depends on two things. one is the rating of the breaker. the other is the gauge of the wire. a thinner wire will get hotter than a thicker one carrying the same amperage. for instance, you could switch out a 15 amp breaker for a 60 amp and run four times as much stuff, but if you've still got 14/2 romex, then you're using your wire as a fuse. layman's explanation: the shit is going to catch fire.

5. take nothing for granted. this stuff isn't rocket science, but if you're unsure of something, get qualified help. this is especially true if you're working in a triplex and are liable to burn out 2 other families if you fuck up.

 

[OreoGrows]

we dont have the ability to get into the basement to check the breaker. its locked up by the landlord. i guess he had already run both lights and the fans thru a surgeprotector into one of the outlets for a minute but after like 5 minutes the surge protector turned off. they both ran find for a moment tho and when the surge protector went off he just unplugged one light.
id think based on that it wouldnt blow the circuit but i have no idea. i wish we could get into the basement but the landlord has it locked up good he uses it for storage i guess
120v lights

 

[rives]

OG, the surge protector probably has a breaker in it and it tripped before the breaker in the panel could. Breakers have a time/current curve so that they trip faster depending on the degree to which they are overloaded, so they don't necessarily trip as quickly as you would think. The total load that you are talking about is too much for a 20 amp circuit, and it is almost certainly only a 15 amp. It's possible that the bedroom has 2 circuits in it, but if so, it is pretty likely that those circuits are feeding something besides that bedroom. As AG said, you need to be able to chase the circuits out to see what you have.