Electrical Ques. If I can help someone I will...

FMJ--never really dealt with thermoelectric devices so can't help ya--sorry...I'm from the KISS school--Keep It Simple Stoopid..

Ganjagoddess, in looking over these posts I just realized that you are gonna protect everything with GFCI so ferget what I said about the cr20s, those are just regular receps. What you want are leviton 7899s--a 20amp GFCI recep. You could put one of those at the start of the run, making sure to put the black and white incoming wires on the 'line' side and the black and white outgoing wires on the 'load' side, and then use the regular cr20s downstream from the GFCI, and that will make all the downstream receps protected by that first one in the stream. It's fine to run more than one recep on each circuit as long as you make sure you don't go over about 24 amps total on the circuit. On all the downstream stuff I would do 'pigtail' wiring where you take the incoming black, the outgoing black, and a 6" pigtail and put them together in a red wire nut and then use that pigtail for that recep, doing the same with the white wires. Just make sure everything is tight--looseness is what causes fires. Good luck and be safe! Especially when you go to hooking it all up in the panel--find the breaker that controls that and turn it off before putting your hands(or any other part!) in there. Everybody should have a cheap little device called a voltage tic that is just a plastic pen-looking device that will tell you if a wire is hot or not with a beeper and light just by touching the wire, insulation still on or not.

fuck yes pete moss, you just gave my final piece of knowledge that need.. thank you so much.... love this thread

I was wondering if I can just pop a 30 amp breaker in to take the place of a 15 amp breaker? If not, what can I do to boost the amps.... I live in an upper duplex, so no thrashing walls or big construction jobs... I just need some more power

DONT DO THAT!!! the wiring will melt when overloaded and not tripping the 15 amp breaker that was replaced by a 30.

FIRE!!!!

As GG just said that wiring thats tied to that 15amp breaker is to small of wire(14awg solid probably) to handle the power provided by the 30amp breaker, you would have to run thicker wire, number 10wire(10awg) would be the only solution to your problem

Hey kushmonster I am using using 2 utility lamps with a light bulb splitter and using two 45 watt bulbs making about 150 watts, (2 lamps of 2 bulbs) and was thinking about getting two more setups for the flowering stage do you think that this would be two much or should i save up for a high power (HPS) or something.....is there another setup i could do thats cheap other than CFL's...suggestions??

OH YES, try t8 flourescents

Go to home depot, find the light fixture called the shoplight for $8.32 it holds 2 4' t8 light bulbs.

GET 5 of these

then get a 10 pack of the t8 6500k or 5000k daylight t8 bulbs for $30.

Viola $75 a massive veggin light.

I have a closet i plan to move my plants in. its a simple 29inch by 24inch by 8ft high. With now outlest in the closet i need to find out how do i put more than one florescent bulb ?

Should i just go buy some crappy lamp with three bulbs hanging out? u know, the "Tree" style. Please help me out on this one. i eventually plan on making a hydro set, but that'll be my third grow. or maybe on my second, which is going to be with HID's. Please help! i just wanna smoke my own sht ! i bet it feels awsome.

kushmonster said:

I've been a member here for almost a month now and I see alot of people asking electrical questions...

I've been an Electrician for about 10yrs now so if someone has a question pertaining to electrical or wiring, I'll be happy to help if I can

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Just wondering If I can plug two 400w lights into the same power strip without any negative consequences??? I mean if an outlet can handle a single thousand watt light, wouldn't it be safe to say it could hold two 400's? Any reply or answer will be greatly appreciated. Please and thanks.

dvsmoi6 said:

I have a closet i plan to move my plants in. its a simple 29inch by 24inch by 8ft high. With now outlest in the closet i need to find out how do i put more than one florescent bulb ?

Should i just go buy some crappy lamp with three bulbs hanging out? u know, the "Tree" style. Please help me out on this one. i eventually plan on making a hydro set, but that'll be my third grow. or maybe on my second, which is going to be with HID's. Please help! i just wanna smoke my own sht ! i bet it feels awsome.

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So you have only 1 exsisting light in that closet, well you can either remove the bulb and put in A base plug, that is a plug that screws in like a lightbulb but has 1 recepticale at the end so you can convert your light socket into a recepticale. Or you can disconnect the light from the power(make sure power is off first),take a measurment from light to the wall, then down the wall about a foot above the floor, with that measurment,(probably about 12') go and buy 3wire(hot, nuetral, ground) 12gauge romex from HD or Lowes, A standard single gang box and a 20amp GFI recepticale, and cable clips(for mounting romex). Strip wires and color match romex wire to the old light wires, (white to white, blk to blk, green to green)Mount the romex onto wall, at the other end mount single gang box to wall feed romex into box and hook up GFI recepticale accordingly, now you have a recepticale that you can plug lighting into

zeke907 said:

Just wondering If I can plug two 400w lights into the same power strip without any negative consequences??? I mean if an outlet can handle a single thousand watt light, wouldn't it be safe to say it could hold two 400's? Any reply or answer will be greatly appreciated. Please and thanks.

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What size circuit breaker?? what else is on that circuit?? 2 400watt tansformers are gonna draw more amps then 1 1000watt ballast, what you can do is plug everything in(let it run for about an hour) and see if it trips the breaker, if thats the case I would try and have each one on a seperate circuit

Not sure what size circuit breaker. I am guessing 15A, I live in a house. The only things I have running in that room are the lights, and the fans. I have a 16 oscillating fan, and a 10 inch fan, and the 400 W MH, and was gonna hook up the 400W HPS as well, but didnt wanna short the circuit or do any other damage unnecassarily. Thanks for the response KUSH. How do I find out what size circuit? Trip the breaker meaning it will shut off correct? As like a surge protector or what have you? Also when you say separate circuit, do you mean just another plug in the same room?

At 120 Volts
400 watt = 4.0 amps
430 watt = 5.2 amps
600 watt = 5.5 amps
1000 watt = 9.5 amps

At 240 volts
400 watt = 2.0 amps
430 watt = 2.6 amps
600 watt = 2.9 amps
1000 watt = 4.8 amps

He should be fine to run the two 400's and fans off the room.

Can I branch off before the stove's outlet. I want to share the lights with the stove's breaker. The breaker for the stove says 40amps I'm running around 2600 watts in lights at the most... Im thinking this may be the only option...

You can BUT, your stove outlet runs on 240v, your lights are set up for 120v, you HAVE to change this on your lights, which is very simple if your lights are magnetic ballasts.

ganjagoddess said:

You can BUT, your stove outlet runs on 240v, your lights are set up for 120v, you HAVE to change this on your lights, which is very simple if your lights are magnetic ballasts.

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Don't *have* use the 240, you can just use a single 120 leg (240 is 2 phase. 2 120 lines that are 180 degree out of phase)

But I'd go the 240 ballast adjustment. Keep the load in balance.

kushmonster said:

As GG just said that wiring thats tied to that 15amp breaker is to small of wire(14awg solid probably) to handle the power provided by the 30amp breaker, you would have to run thicker wire, number 10wire(10awg) would be the only solution to your problem

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what about going from 15a to 20a....i believe my house is wired on 12guage, my dad is an electrition and rewired half the house when it was under remodel...unfortenatley i cant just ask him..i have 20a non dedicated in the bathrooms and kitchen...but would like to bump one of the bedrooms to 20a

No I highly highly doubt that he used 12 awg and hooked it up to 15 amps, electricians do not do that. You cannot just swap out breakers and say Okey Dokey, you would need to run all new 12 gauge wire for 20 amps, and 10 guage for 30 amps.

Both 20 and 30 come in 120v version breakers.


Also A 20 amp breaker cannot POWER (2) 1000 watt lights.

the 20 amp breaker will trip past 17 amps.

So if that is what you are trying to accomplish here you are going to burn your house down.

Yeas I know it is really hard to get electricity set up appropiatly but it is viable and possible.


When I had a apartment what we did was disconnect the stove, turn of the main breaker.

Unscrewed the stove plug, installed a Junction box, splice on a extra length of about 20 feet of 10awg, ran it to the bedroom under the carpet as best as possible, and set up a subpanel from that feeding out 15 amp lines around the grow room.

Yeah you get no stove but you get a solid 50 amps to pull on for anything you could want.

Well put. I ran 10 Gauge to my compressor/welder (switchable out let that can only allow one device to operate at a time) on a 20amp breaker. (but I'm not an electrician, I care a bit more, its *my* house.) Copper is *expensive* these days, (and for the last few years) Going over spec just isn't done.

He's NOT going to burn his house down The breaker (which is UL/CSA listed, and UL/CSA is the insurance company for the breaker) The breaker will trip. The concept of a breaker is to PROTECT THE WIRING, hence, reduce chances of a fire. Breakers can't trip an indefinite amount of times. They get weak. They are a combo of therm and magnetic. Thermal gives out faster after numerous trips.

ganjagoddess said:

No I highly highly doubt that he used 12 awg and hooked it up to 15 amps, electricians do not do that. You cannot just swap out breakers and say Okey Dokey, you would need to run all new 12 gauge wire for 20 amps, and 10 guage for 30 amps.

Both 20 and 30 come in 120v version breakers.


Also A 20 amp breaker cannot POWER (2) 1000 watt lights.

the 20 amp breaker will trip past 17 amps.

So if that is what you are trying to accomplish here you are going to burn your house down.

Yeas I know it is really hard to get electricity set up appropiatly but it is viable and possible.


When I had a apartment what we did was disconnect the stove, turn of the main breaker.

Unscrewed the stove plug, installed a Junction box, splice on a extra length of about 20 feet of 10awg, ran it to the bedroom under the carpet as best as possible, and set up a subpanel from that feeding out 15 amp lines around the grow room.

Yeah you get no stove but you get a solid 50 amps to pull on for anything you could want.

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If you have a 15 amp breaker wired with 14 awg

and you just switch it for a 20 amp breaker, then overload it.

It could cause the wiring to melt, and start a fire.

Growrrom Leccy is a vary serious biz, and needs to be treated with the utmost caution,

ganjagoddess said:

If you have a 15 amp breaker wired with 14 awg

and you just switch it for a 20 amp breaker, then overload it.

It could cause the wiring to melt, and start a fire.

Growrrom Leccy is a vary serious biz, and needs to be treated with the utmost caution,

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Yes it WILL overload it. But *THATS* the job of the breaker; to protect the wiring. If the wires still fail, sue UL/CSA since they have put their 'ok' on it. Thats what they do and why they are there.

And melt the wire? Thats actually not likely. What happens is that the wire gets hot, and melts the insulation. Europe is good about using a smaller gauge wire and higher temp insulation. (now melted insulation is just as dangerous, but the insulation melting is way behind a breaker tripping.)

Breakers do NOT protect the device, just the wiring to said device.

Still no reason to wire it up incorrectly.
I wasn't going that route. Just saying that he wouldn't burn his house down. He'd trip a breaker. Repeatedly.