Lights go out when A/C starts.

Houston, we have a problem.
Most of the time when my Central Air Conditioner turns on my 150 watt hps light turns off, and then it takes about 5 minutes to restart and get going again. What can I do to fix this problem? I live in a very old house, built in 1926.

Sounds like it needs some serious re-wiring. I'm no electrician but I think your A/C should be on it's own circuit.

Oh yes for sure... My A/C has its own 240 volt breaker. Infact, every light in my house dims a little bit when the A/C starts, but only the HPS light has to restart every time.

something still aint right....seems like a voltage drop somewhere...

It only happens when the A/C first starts up.
It sounds like a UPS might be what I need. Can I find one at Best Buy or Home Depot?

Bigrintxas said:

It only happens when the A/C first starts up.
It sounds like a UPS might be what I need. Can I find one at Best Buy or Home Depot?

Click to expand...

Don't know about Home Depot.... you can get them from a computer store (like CompUSA) or online perhaps a little cheaper like at tigerdirect.com or some other on-line computer store. I don't do the purchasing so I'm not even sure what these are running these days..... but I'm guessing between $50-$100.

It won't stop the lights from dimming... and in fact the UPS itself will lose power and beep at you.... but the battery inside will keep the light running while the A/C powers on.

Even if this works for you as a temporary patch.... I'd still get that wiring checked out ASAP.... bad wiring scares the shit out of me. I would be paranoid the house is going to burn down.

Good luck

I will definitely check into that UPS you are talking about. There is a Fry's Electronics not too far from here.
The A/C unit and the Grow room are both new (within 5 or 6 years) so I dont think it is the wiring. Well I hope it isnt the wiring...
I insulated the grow room with Tiger Foam Insulation (Tiger Foam | Spray Foam Insulation Kits) because I was worried about the possibility of a fire. So if there is a fire atleast it will be contained.

When your AC turns on is when it draws the utmost amperage it would use (other than when running full bore) I'd imagine your overall amperage is going to high when the AC kicks on. You mention it to be wired on it's own 240, but does that 240 wire into the same box as your 150's? You should have a fuse protection box that everything wires to. Check the amperage of the fuses then do the math on your electronics. I'd assume your AC is 15 amps, most main circuits are only 15-20 amps as is "Don't quote me on that". Add 9-12 more amps of lighting and anything else in the circuit running and you'll reset your fuse box every time the AC turns on (Being it draws the peak amperage when turned on) I would try running heavy gauge extension cord from another room/area of your house to run the lighting (Temp fix). Ultimately you would want to rewire the circuits at the box in a way that the lights run off their own 20 amp circuit, the Ac runs on it's own 20 amp circuit.

Peace

Hope this helps =)

YuRmy

You need to get that light off that circuit & to another circut,sounds to me like you have a double pole breaker,with those breakers you want ALL your high current/amperage devices on one side of the breaker,if you stagger them on each side that is what causes lights to dim when there is a large power draw,when this happens your ballast looses enough amperage to sustain the light.

Does your service panel look like this ?



If so here is what im talking about,see the bus bar on the left & the other bus bar on the right,you want all your high amperage devices on one side or the other,not staggered.



If your circuts are not labeled for each room you can find what breaker controls each outlet pretty easy with a lamp,just plug a lamp into every outlet & turn one breaker off at a time until you find one that is on the same side of the service panel as the air con unit.

If the circuts that are on the same side as your air con are not viable for you to use because they are out of reach to the grow op or because they are all filled up its very easy to switch things around.

There are 3 wires to each breaker/circuit,black is hot,white is neutral & bare copper or green is ground,the black wire screws into the breaker switch,the white wire screws into the common neutral bar & the bare copper or green screws into the grounding bar.

Neutral bar.



Grounding bar.



Depending on electrical code in your area you may be able to legaly use the grounding bar for both neutral (white) and the ground ( bare copper or green),all that is required to do this is a phillips screwdriver.

All you have to do is kill the main power,the breaker switches just pop in & out with your fingers,no tools are needed as they are not screwed in or attached,they just clip in,after you remove the breaker switch there may be enough slack for you to move it over to the side with the air con on it.

If there is not enough slack simple loosen the black on the breaker switch then loosen ground & common,pull the wires out the top of the panel & reinsert them to the other side through a hole in the panel,if all holes are filled there will be other (knock outs) near by,a knock out is a factory service hole that still has metal in it,you can see by looking at it that the metal in the hole can be popped out with a screwdriver.

After running the wires to the other side of the paney simply re attach the black to the breaker switch & the neutral & ground to their locations in the panel,then reclip(pop in) the breaker on the desired side of the panel.

This is very easy & should only take about 5 minutes of work,as long as the MAIN switch is in the off position you will be ok,its so simple i wire all my stuff without cutting off the main but i do not reccomend this unless your familiar with electrical panels.

If its a central AC, (and even window/wall versions) the prob could be the AC. Too much freon will load up a compressor. Compressor maybe be just going.
Toss a clamp amp meter on the compressor and see whats up. Starter caps are known to go bad on them.

Another possibility it could be is your total amperage coming from the pole outside. I live in an older house too, but not as old as yours and had a similar problem. With the way we use electricity today it would be very easy to reach the amps coming into the meter. In my case I only had 100 amps coming in, and every time the AC would kick on it would dim every light in the house. So check that first, if you are reaching your max for the entire house it does not matter how much re-wiring you do, if the amps are not there to begin with its not going to do any good. I replaced my fusebox with a breaker box and had the electric company put in a 200 amp meter and all is the way it should be.

panhead, nice pics and post I just completed this project myself last week. It went pretty smooth but wish I had got to read your post first, very informative.

Thanks Panhead.. rep.
Yeah that is what my breaker box looked like 5 years ago. When I bought this place I had a central A/C unit installed and they used a double pole breaker in 2 of the unused slots in the breaker box. The Grow room also had a new breaker installed, so it is on its own breaker also.
The company that did the work had to pull permits and it was inspected by the city before they completed the job, so Im pretty sure everything is hooked up correctly. I am going out today to buy an uninterrupted power supply. I hope that works....
I also think it might be what rkm said... The meter might not be big enough to handle all of the new additions.

Bigrintxas said:

Thanks Panhead.. rep.
Yeah that is what my breaker box looked like 5 years ago. When I bought this place I had a central A/C unit installed and they used a double pole breaker in 2 of the unused slots in the breaker box. The Grow room also had a new breaker installed, so it is on its own breaker also.
The company that did the work had to pull permits and it was inspected by the city before they completed the job, so Im pretty sure everything is hooked up correctly. I am going out today to buy an uninterrupted power supply. I hope that works....
I also think it might be what rkm said... The meter might not be big enough to handle all of the new additions.

Click to expand...

If your main is not large enough you'll know on the spot,the main breaker will pop & all power will be cut off to the entire house,the lights would not go dim in that type situation,atleast this would not happen over & over,an over worked main may very well not break the circuit every time its over loaded but it will not continue like that forever,sooner or later all it would of took would be for one extra device such as another tv set being on, then the main would pop,if you have never had to reset your main breaker chances are ultra slim that that is the culprit.

Being hooked up correctly or per building code has nothing to do with the amperage pull going out,unless you specifically told your electrician that you were going to be running high amperage devices there would have been no way for him to know,even if you did specify this to him not all electricans care about lights going dim,this issue is not against most building codes,its a conveince issue & would have no bearing on permits issued or passing inspection,the reason this dimming issue is not against code is that its 100% impossible to know ahead of time exactly how much amperage a home owner plans on using in each room,they do their best to take measures but thats as far as it goes.

I think you may be missing what im saying,picture carrying two 5 gallon buckets of water,for you or i its easier to carry one bucket in each hand,it is not this way for electrical service,its oposite,all high amperage loads must be on either the left or right side of the panel,any other way will cause light dimming & power loss.

Its a simple task to check,before you spend any money on anything you should seriously investigate weather the grow room is on the oposite bus bar from the air con,weather the grow op has its own breaker is irrelevant,the power supplying the grow ops breaker is still being supplied from the service panel & both the grow op's power & air com power MUST be on one side or the other,if the air con & grow room are not both on the same side (Left or Right) of the panel its a 99% chance that is your problem.

Buying a power supply may work in your situation depending on how large the capacitor's are in the power supply but that will only be a band aid solution to the problem which will require no dollars spent to fix correctly.

Bigrintxas said:

Oh yes for sure... My A/C has its own 240 volt breaker. Infact, every light in my house dims a little bit when the A/C starts, but only the HPS light has to restart every time.

Click to expand...

Its a safty thing for the ballest, the hps has to run on a constant supply of power. thats why when it senses the drop it resets.