Experienced Electrician! Here to Answer Any and All Growroom Electrical Questions

Sticky Contactor...

Hey 5toned, hope all is well. I've been having some shitty luck with contactors lately. Seems they want to "stick" close. A little research leads me to believe they are too week, but are only rated at 30 amps and are running 4 1k lights.

Anything I can do to help out sticky contactors?

Which contactors would you recomend for our lighting applications?

How are you using them? To turn on the ballasts or to swap between bulbs? (12hrs this room and 12 hours that room)

If the latter, HPS have a high voltage (over 1000volts) start up spike that can cause the contacts to weld shut. I'd suggest to use 2 contactors, one on the bulbs and another on the ballasts. Kill the ballast, swap bulbs then ballasts back on.

Now if its just starting up the ballasts, then yeah, bigger contactors. SquareD/Telle, AB make good ones.

watercooled@ said:

Sticky Contactor...

Hey 5toned, hope all is well. I've been having some shitty luck with contactors lately. Seems they want to "stick" close. A little research leads me to believe they are too week, but are only rated at 30 amps and are running 4 1k lights.

Anything I can do to help out sticky contactors?

Which contactors would you recomend for our lighting applications?

Click to expand...

^ Just Ballast.

watercooled@ said:

^ Just Ballast.

Click to expand...

Yup under rated. You could use a few of them if its cheaper then buying a bigger single.

hey 'Stoned.

I was working in my garage, and noticed that my subpanel (built with the house not an addition) is like 3 feet from my hot water tank. This OK for code? I have an outlet near by that is a GFI.

the ballasts wich r useable fr both MH n HPS dusnt hv a switch with it like fr convertin between li8s...cn i jst switch d li8s n put power on ??...mines a 400w named BrightStar...!!

BigBudBalls said:

hey 'Stoned.

I was working in my garage, and noticed that my subpanel (built with the house not an addition) is like 3 feet from my hot water tank. This OK for code? I have an outlet near by that is a GFI.

Click to expand...

the dedicated space for a sub panel (aka non service rated panel) is a radius of 30 inches, extending from the center mark of the panel, from floor to ceiling. so a 30 inch half circle surrounding the panel.
36 inches is the bare minimum to pass codes for new construction, as far as running water. authority haviong jurisdiction might fuss over it, might not.

watercooled@ said:

Sticky Contactor...

Hey 5toned, hope all is well. I've been having some shitty luck with contactors lately. Seems they want to "stick" close. A little research leads me to believe they are too week, but are only rated at 30 amps and are running 4 1k lights.

Anything I can do to help out sticky contactors?

Which contactors would you recomend for our lighting applications?

Click to expand...

2 things.... either the coil is not getting enough voltage (only likely if you have 24v or 12v coils)
or, much more likely, your contactor is rated for 30 amps of resistive load, not 30 amps of inductive load.

the price difference between a 30 amp resistive relay/contactor and a 30 amp inductive relay/timer can be as much as 100$........

your ballasts are inductive loads, and if i remember right, you got a bunch of them...

Quantity in Basket:none
Code: CTR40242PDL
Price:$109.73



Heavy Duty Contactor Description

No more bugs,No more dirty points.
Electrical Definite Purpose Contactor
Inductive Full Load Current 30 Amperes
Resistive Full Load Current 40 Amperes
Number of Poles 2
Power Rating @ 120 VAC 2 HP
Power Rating @ 230 VAC
Single Phase 5 HP
600 VAC Maximum
24 Volts Coil @ 50 Hertz

another thing to take into account, is that the contactor must be rated for continuous duty.

to do this, you must add up all of the maximum input wattage of all your ballasts, and convert it to amperage to size the correct contactor. this is not the lamp sizes, but the total amount of power the lamp/ballast combo uses.
for examples sake, lets pretend a 400w ballast uses 40w of power, in addition to the 400w the lamp pulls....
so the maximum input power of the ballast/lamp combo would be 440w.

440/(voltage)= amperage

440watts/240volts= 1.83amps

now lets pretend you have 10 400w fixtures....

440 x 10 = 4400
4400/240 = 18.33 amps

18.33 amps. this is considered the full load ampaerage, or, in other words, all the power your pulling for lights.

ok, now we know your lights pull 18.33 amps
now we have to find out what the continuous duty rating is
to find continuous duty rating, you multiply the full load amperage by a factor of 120%

18.33amps x 120% = 21.96 (22 amps)

so, for our example, the smallest size contactor for our lights would be 22 amps inductive, 22 amps is the continuous duty, and inductive because thats the type of load you have..... since they dont make 22 amp contactors, we go to the next largest size, which in this case would be a 30 amp inductive load contactor. you can see what they cost from the one above....

as far as brand names, square D, allen bradley, GE are the only ones i would trust.
the key phrases you need to look for in a lighting contactor, is both heavy duty, and, definite purpose.

if your buying a contactor that says, igeneral duty, general purpose, you'll have issues with it....

IAm5toned said:

the dedicated space for a sub panel (aka non service rated panel) is a radius of 30 inches, extending from the center mark of the panel, from floor to ceiling. so a 30 inch half circle surrounding the panel.
36 inches is the bare minimum to pass codes for new construction, as far as running water. authority haviong jurisdiction might fuss over it, might not.

Click to expand...

So what the logic behind it?

An outlet (typically 15A) needs a GFI within 6 feet of water.

A sub panel (can be 200A) is OK within ~30 inches?

Logic being an outlet is an end item and a person can be at the outlet while the sub panel is not really an end user item?

Overall I'm fine with it, but saw it and did a double take and got curious. It just didn't sit 'right' with me.

On another note: I have a plastic rubbermaid shed on the other side of a garage wall. I wanna toss my compressor in it (don't wanna listen to the noise). Would conduit or sealtite be OK (code wise) to bridge the 1 foot gap between the two 'buildings'?

So is this contactor appropriate because it states definite purpose? Seems the others are quite expensive in comparison.

they are more expensive because either the number of poles, or the coil voltage.

the one i posted, is the shit... remember when wiring these contacters, all your doing is switching the hot only, or one leg of a 240v circuit...
so a 2 pole 30 amp contactor can switch 30 amps per pole for a total of 60 amps.
when it comes to electrical devices, its hard put to find a better name than square d.

BigBudBalls said:

So what the logic behind it?

An outlet (typically 15A) needs a GFI within 6 feet of water.

A sub panel (can be 200A) is OK within ~30 inches?

Logic being an outlet is an end item and a person can be at the outlet while the sub panel is not really an end user item?

Overall I'm fine with it, but saw it and did a double take and got curious. It just didn't sit 'right' with me.

On another note: I have a plastic Rubbermaid shed on the other side of a garage wall. I wanna toss my compressor in it (don't wanna listen to the noise). Would conduit or sealtite be OK (code wise) to bridge the 1 foot gap between the two 'buildings'?

Click to expand...

the logic behind it is that the sub panel has a cover on it, that normally, would be closed, that can withstand a 5 second hose test from a distance of 30 inches before the interior of the can is breached with water.
whereas with receptacles, 98% of them have no cover that can withstand water for any duration of time.

I'm having issues finding a Square D, 2 pole, 40A, with 120V coil. Is there a sight you've found to be less expensive and carries it all?

ok here is my problem,last night a breaker triped in my panel,so when I go to reset it I get an electrical buzzing arking type sound, never had this happen to me before,I have turned on some very large breakers at work and have never had this happen, could it be just a bad breaker or do I HAVE SOME OTHER PROBLEM. thanks if you can help peace and grow on

watercooled@ said:

I'm having issues finding a Square D, 2 pole, 40A, with 120V coil. Is there a sight you've found to be less expensive and carries it all?

Click to expand...

radford bros is pretty good-

http://secure2.data-comm.com/servlet/RBIS/-strse-94697/SQUARE-D-8910DPA33V02-5B118/Detail

My power goes out a lot and goes of and on 2 or 3 times a week. my new digital 400's are failing, I can go back to the regular ones but would like to keep these and the ones they will replace. I am looking for a time delay that will not let the power come back on for say 20 minutes so they can cool and reset. They just need to be off for 20 to 30 before they re-fire as I said off and on kills them need the delay. Any ideas.

Peace

Thank you

woodsmaneh! said:

My power goes out a lot and goes of and on 2 or 3 times a week. my new digital 400's are failing, I can go back to the regular ones but would like to keep these and the ones they will replace. I am looking for a time delay that will not let the power come back on for say 20 minutes so they can cool and reset. They just need to be off for 20 to 30 before they re-fire as I said off and on kills them need the delay. Any ideas.

Peace

Thank you

Click to expand...

what you need, is a timer controlled relay/contactor that is overridden by a one shot relay

a one shot relay works like this-
when it recieves voltage on its input terminal, the relay activates for whatever period of time you set it for. when the time period expires, the relay switches off (or on, depending how you have it configured) and the relay remains in that state untill voltage is removed from its input terminal.

so pretty much, what you would do, is have the input terminal on the one shot relay connected to the line voltage, ahead of the timer that controls the contactor. that way, if the power is interrupted (like in an outage) when the power comes back on, it will activate the timer, and stop the lights from turning on... then the timer runs out, the lights turn on, and your good to go untill the next interruption event.

the key to this operation is using the one shot relay to control the coil of a contactor.
the one shot relay itself wont be big enough to handle switching the lights, so you have to have that contactor for it to work right.

click me:

I'm new here and I heard this was the place to go to solve electrical issues.


I accidentally plugged my t5 into a 240v outlet yesterday and now it's not working anymore. I'm pretty sure I shorted a circuit. Is there any way you know to fix this kind of thing, I really need this light for my mother.

It's still under warranty but I don't think they'd cover that kind of damage, right?

Is there something comercial avalible from Sq D ?

hi I was wounding about setting up 3 1k hps and one 600 hps I seen at the local shop they sell a "control board" that pugs into the dryer plug which I belive is 40 amps. this "controller" has 8 outlets and a heavy duty timer on it and its all housed on a peice of 1/2 inch plywood and retails for $395.... Is there anyone I could make this same thing for alot less? And will it run what i want?