A power panel to keep electrics safe and neat

VictorVIcious said:

So when you get to your panel with the 240 volt circuit your are just splitting it for the smaller items, like pumps, fans etc.

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That's right. As my local household AC mains voltage is 240V, everything in the op runs on 240, down to the smallest flood pump. This power panel is just a fancy extension cord which goes straight to the breaker box.

All of the wiring for my grow is 12 wire and all the breakers and receptacles are 20 amp. Each hid is on its own circuit and timer. The receptacles are all back wired like your talking about as hospital grade. Guess I just need to put more thought into how I can make it more convenient. VV

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Sounds really good, VV. Heavy duty and over-rated is the way to go. I pull less than 50% of the capacity of my panel and cable to the breaker box.

You're right about convenience. It's nice to have everything all on one control panel, a bit like a grow-op dashboard, including temp control and a peak-memory thermo/hygrometer. Easy to see at a glance what timers are set for as well as check what's been going on in my absence.

My panel isn't quite industrial quality, but I used the heaviest-duty cable and high current sockets I could get at the local hdwe. Could potentially have gone to an electrical supply and got 20-25A rated ceramic sockets, but that was overkill considering my 1000s draw 8A for about 4sec while striking up and only 4.62A while running.

BTW, Nth American readers should note that my 1000W HPS running current of 4.62A is because my 1000W lamps run on 240V. If these 1000W lamps ran on 120V, they would pull 16A on start and 9.24A continuously. They would stress a 120V 15A ckt and might pop a 15A breaker.

Keen students of Ohm's Law know that Volts x Amps = Watts, so 4.62A x 240V = 1108.8 watts.

You say, "Hey! That's a 1000W HPS. You're drawing 1108.8W. Where's the other 108.8 watts going?"

Simple, it's wasted as heat. The transformer in the ballast will waste a little bit of energy in changing the AC mains voltage to that which the HPS tube can use. Some energy is wasted as heat from the HPS tube itself, too. "Cool Tube" or ducted cooling of HPS lighting is good stuff, but for maximum reduction of waste heat in a grow op that runs too warm, locate the ballast outside the op airmass.

I've made a rough drawing of the basic wiring of the panel and edited it into the lead post in this thread.

Added here also for your convenience.



Like I said, it's a glorified extension cord.

If you are on 120V and need to run 1000W lights, build this times 2, but with only 2 outlets per run of Romex to the breaker box and with a 15A breaker instead of a 30A. Run only one 1000 per run of Romex. If using a 1000 on one outlet, the 2nd is good for about 300-400W of fans, etc.

Al B. Fuct said:

I've made a rough drawing of the basic wiring of the panel and edited it into the lead post in this thread.

Added here also for your convenience.



Like I said, it's a glorified extension cord.

If you are on 120V and need to run 1000W lights, build this times 2, but with only 2 outlets per run of Romex to the breaker box and with a 15A breaker instead of a 30A. Run only one 1000 per run of Romex. If using a 1000 on one outlet, the 2nd is good for about 300-400W of fans, etc.

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I'm slightly confused on the running of the wire from the box to the room. I'm not even sure how to run wire from a breaker box to somewhere else in the house.

Also, how much would it cost to have an electrician install the 220v (Nth American) in one or both of my open slots in my breaker box to the op room(s)?

i have the same thermometer

Depends on the distance and what is in between. To begin with you would need two open slots for each 220 line. If you only have two open slots you will not have enough power to run lights etc. for 4-5' by5' tables. My mainservice was only 60 amp so I had to upgrade my service. The difference for having the power company run 100 amp new service and 200 amp service was minimal, like under $100.00 difference. This allowed my to put in a new 40 space 200 amp panel. The difference in cost from the 30 space 100 amop box to the 40 space 200 amp box was about $30.00.
I installed the post for the meter and did all the wiring myself. I have a friend that is an electrician. He pulled the permit for me and scheduled the inspections. All total I probably spent $1500.00 to $2000.00 but I over built everything, using 12 wire instead of 14, 20 amp breakers instead of 15 amp etc.
Depending on the size of the wire they run, $300 to $400 should cover it. VV

Paola said:

I'm slightly confused on the running of the wire from the box to the room. I'm not even sure how to run wire from a breaker box to somewhere else in the house.

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You will need to be familiar with basic house construction techniques to run wiring around.

Find out how the other wiring is pulled into the breaker box and try to follow it with your new wire.

Often, you can just drill a hole in the ceiling of a closet to get your cable up into the attic. Other wiring up in the attic will head for the breaker box. Follow them thar wires, hombre.

If you're a total electrical neophyte, this may be a job you should farm out to a pro... but the problem is security. If you can DIY, you can better control who knows about the op (YOU.). However, amateurish wiring can be equally hazardous to your stealth...

Screengrabs from cop video of a 7 growhouse bust.

If your wiring looks like this, you deserve to go to jail too.

Memory lane night. Yep. VV

VV, this one indeed should be bumped- every newb (and a few experienced growers who frankly should know better) should see threads about electrical safety in the op every now and again.

Electrical fires can almost always be avoided through conservative planning and good wiring practises. I never exceed 50% of the max current I could draw from my run of 10ga to the bkr box, but one can use up to 80% of rated capacity and sleep very well at night.

i just wanted to say thanks to Al for being so knowledgeable and explaining everyting clearly and precise! Its so good to have a guy like you on here....and the best thing is your not one of those know it all braggers!

keep up the kick ass posts!

im done kissin ass now

Gweese, thanks for the ass kissing.

See, mom was right, always wear clean undies.

However, I do disagree with you a bit... I am a know-it-all; just not (usually) a braggard.

I do get annoyed when I see ppl posting shit that's flat-out wrong, but I don't point it out as much as I once may have. I have other things to do, thanks- like run my op.

These days, it just makes me a bit sad to see some poor sod fork out a few hundred bucks for a bunch of LEDs (or something equally silly) when they could have copied a known working op and could have been smoking instead of wasting time and money dicking around with experimental toys or wives' tale crap.

My focus here is on making my op produce the best it can and documenting it well enough that anyone can replicate it.

okay, this stuffs confusing, so how would you run power out to a shed bout 50 meters from the house, with enough power to run like 100 100w equivalent cfl's and then later add 5-6 1000w hps, plus whatever for pumps and fans and stuff. sorry I tried to figure it out myself, but until somebody verbally explains it all to me I won't understand any of it. hell, I've already read this thread 5 times

Mr. Maryjane said:

okay, this stuffs confusing, so how would you run power out to a shed bout 50 meters from the house, with enough power to run like 100 100w equivalent cfl's and then later add 5-6 1000w hps, plus whatever for pumps and fans and stuff. sorry I tried to figure it out myself, but until somebody verbally explains it all to me I won't understand any of it. hell, I've already read this thread 5 times

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If you are not well versed in household AC wiring, you are well advised NOT to attempt to install any yourself. It's not advisable to call in an electrician unless you're quite sure this sparkie is trustworthy. However, as the old saying goes, two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.

The power panel I describe in this thread is a distribution system for within the grow op. A new run of Romex connects this power panel to the breaker box.

In your case, you will need to bury your cables out to the shed. You can get direct burial cable (exxy) or you can sheath your runs in a buried PVC pipe. If you live in a climate where freezing temps occur in winter, you will need to bury the cables/PVC pipe below the frost line.

The 'incandescent equivalent' wattage rating of a CFL is a useless number. It does not tell you how much power the lamp is actually pulling out of the AC mains and thus isn't useful for planning electrical wiring. CFLs are useless for anything but clones and slow vegging some mums anyway, so give that a rethink before hauling off and buying a bunch of them. It's cheaper by far in lumens per watt to use HPS. Since luminous intensity figures, being a quantification of brightness, do not 'add,' (putting one lamp next to another makes neither one brighter) you could use a million CFLs and never get the intensity available from HPS.

Working with the 6000W (6x 1kW HPS) number (which incidentally does not account for the up to temporary 50% greater startup than running current involved with HID lighting), at a 240V line voltage (presumed 240V given your metric figures, guessing you are in Australia or UK/Europe), the total running current draw will be 25A (6000W/240V=25A). 10ga Romex is good for 30A max @ 240V. The continuous current drawn per run of 10ga Romex cable should no more than 80% of the max rating, or 24A per run. This 6kW load would thus require AT LEAST two runs of 10ga Romex cable from your breaker box to the shed, with each run breakered at 20A in the breaker box. The runs of Romex to the power panel should each be connected to no more than 3 outlets on the panel intended for 1000HPS lights.

If you are on 120V mains AC, you have much bigger problems. The halved line voltage means the current doubles compared to 240V. Each 1000 will draw 9.62A @ 120V while running and about 15A for about 15-20 sec when the lamp is striking an arc and warming up. 10ga Romex will handle 15A @ 120V, so you will need a run of 10ga Romex for each 1000 HPS lamp.

If this doesn't explain it for you, you need professional help with your wiring- or a course in household wiring at the local community tech school. Keep in mind that asking an unsympathetic sparkie to put multiple runs of Romex out to your shed WILL raise suspicions about your intents for the wiring.

As an afterthought, if you need 90A @ 120V service in the shed, a sparkie would probably not use Romex. S/he'd elect to use much heavier individual copper cables, perhaps #2 or #3ga, good for up to 100A, buried in PVC out to the shed. There would need to be a breaker box installed in the shed to subdivide that huge current availability into a few 15 or 20A circuits. You can imagine what would happen if a device which normally only draws 5A goes dead short on a 100A line... if you can't imagine, I'll tell you that it involves the fire department.

okay, well, I live in the US so I'm assuming I have 120v. now you said the power line split somewhere? could I just hook up a line to somewhere before the split? and how much would like 100 meters of this romex stuff cost?

Mr. Maryjane said:

okay, well, I live in the US so I'm assuming I have 120v. now you said the power line split somewhere? could I just hook up a line to somewhere before the split? and how much would like 100 meters of this romex stuff cost?

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No, I didn't say 'the power line split' anywhere.

Check your local hdwe store for cable pricing.

Good Stuff

Just recently ran four 8 gauge in 1in conduit from box to garage for a 240v 50-60 amp capable line with a 40A 240V breaker to help me sleep better at night. =)

One little note is that I used the "Hospital Grade Sockets", they are symbolized by the orange color and a green triangle on mine. They were used at every plug good to 25A and you can feel the difference when you plug into them. =)

Here it is



^This sub panel in the garage that takes the 240V line and splits in to 4 20A 120V breakers. Two of the breakers are wired to wall plugs in the garage area that I intend to leave as this is a rental house. The other two go to...

^two 30Amp 125Volt Twist Lock sockets. In this picture you can see the two 10guage 3wire cables plugged into the two twist lock sockets, each on a 20A breaker for easy removal.

^Here is the board that was mostly assembled outside the running room.
In the middle is where the power comes in from the two 30A twist lock sockets. On the right are the two main timers, one veg side one flower side each on one of the 120V branches of the 240. On the left is four plug sets wired to each of the rooms four hard wired circuits; (Ckt=Circuit) Ckt-1, Ckt-1-Timed, Ckt-2, Ckt-2-Timed All of the wiring to outlet boxes is done with 12 gauge 5 wire commercial grade "MMC" giving the ability to run a "Solid Power" and a "Timed Power" socket to each outlet box with only one cable. that are wired to one side of each.

I am lucky enough to have gotton the oppertunity to make multiple trips to an electrical construction "after job" storage wherehouse and litteraly didnt pay for anything except a a few parts that I went to Lows for cause I didnt want to make the drive to the yard.

After all the work was done I had it ALL verified by an electrician buddy and he told me that he could see at least $3,000 in hard parts + labor (me and my partner did it all).

Nice, professional work! Gets no better. Well done.