Electricity

I'm wanting to setup a grow room in a spare bedroom of my rented apartment. I want to use 2 600w hps in the flowering tent and one 600w mh in the veg tent along with a intake fan etc...

I'm wondering how you all who are using multiple 600w and/or 1000w lights are going about not tripping a circuit or causing a fire?

I had to install a second 20a circuit for my 2 1000w lights. You will more then likely have to do the same unless you plan on having the veg tent in different rooms so that they're on different circuits. If you pay someone to put in a new circuit, you can expect to spend less then 200 bucks. Materials are about 60 dollars to do it yourself

Higher a professional I'm maxed out at 2 600w and a 6" fan I have to run the ac on the 12 hours off

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Are you both living in an apartment, and did a electrician install it without needing to get the landlords approval?

Apartment living will be tough... especially if the landlord has the right to enter to do regular maintenance, like to the HVAC unit...

Adding electric to an apartment isnt going to be easy, unless the landlord is ok with it.

If you are using tents get air cooled hoods otherwise those 600's will heat it up too much. Still gonna be close on temps with 600's in a tent if you have 2 of them in there without keeping the AC on and the room/whole apartment cold while lights are on.

Here is a quick calculator, to see watts and amps... http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/Amp_to_Watt_Calculator.htm usually apartments and for that matter single family homes, have a single circuit of 15 amps for the bedroom, sometimes this is shared with other bedrooms as well. Flip the breaker for the bedroom and see what else in the apartment goes off... check the receptacles with a meter or a lamp to see if they are live after you kill the breaker and remember which ones are dead so you know when you plug in your lights and fans what else might be pulling a load as well.

I live in a house so I'm not sure about getting something added in an apartment.

Couldnt you just run them all in parallel with a parallel AC capacitor bank to supply the extra. Your wall should be 1800W and you have 3×600w in lighting. It should work. Otherwise you could run two outlets in parallel to a hand wound transformer with some heavy gauge copper wire. Then have a singular secondary. Look up dual primary transformer. Somes their made to step up or down but heck do some math and bingo.

doniboy said:

I'm wanting to setup a grow room in a spare bedroom of my rented apartment. I want to use 2 600w hps in the flowering tent and one 600w mh in the veg tent along with a intake fan etc...

I'm wondering how you all who are using multiple 600w and/or 1000w lights are going about not tripping a circuit or causing a fire?

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there are several ways of doing this. you can wire several outlets to your box each on their own breaker.

you can run extension cords from outlets that run on separate breakers. make sure the cords are rated for the proper amperage. when doing this make sure you know everything that is on that circuit. a lot of times outlets are on the same circuits as other outlets and home lighting. bathrooms and kitchens usually have 1 or more dedicated outlets for high power appliances like hair dryers, microwaves, etc. unfortunately a lot of times outlets share the same breaker as outlets in other rooms so if you do this make sure you know everything on each circuit.

or you can get 240v 40 amp light controller hard wired to the box and just run all your lights off that. thats what i do for flower. you can also wire these in 120 but with 240 you get more amperage on the same line. then in veg i just use a single dedicated 120v outlet. with 240 though make sure your ballast supports it or it may fry.

if you have an old bus fuse box i would have it replaced with a new one. the modern ones with the breakers are so easy to work on by yourself. simple as turn off the main breaker and you wont get shocked as long as you dont touch nothing before that breaker. i had a friend show me once how to do it and been doing it myself ever since. you actually can wire in the boxes also but i recommend get a licensed person to do it. but once thats in it's easy to do what you want with power DIY saves money. i just dont trust those old bus fuse boxes.

always note how many amps each piece of equipment is using on it's breaker. add it up for each breaker. check your breakers to see if they are 15 or 20 amp. this is how much you can run max before the breaker will trip. anything that that runs often like a fan or light in a grow is considered a constant load. when you have a constant load make sure not to exceed 75% of the max amperage rating. if so you should add another outlet on it's own breaker. i think they do this to there is less heating of the wires lowering the risk of fire.

It's good you're looking into this. This is very important and often overlooked. Your landlord will appreciate you not burning the place down unless he wants insurance money then maybe you could do him a solid if you know what i mean.

doniboy said:

Are you both living in an apartment, and did a electrician install it without needing to get the landlords approval?

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honestly i wouldnt do anything especially grow without the landlords approval. find one that is cool with it and maybe smokes themself. some states you have to ask your landlord before growing. in all fairness it is their property and they would probably appreciate knowing about anything that could cause damage. I know if i were a landlord i wouldnt let someone grow in my place unless they knew what they were doing and not damaging the place.

doniboy said:

I'm wanting to setup a grow room in a spare bedroom of my rented apartment. I want to use 2 600w hps in the flowering tent and one 600w mh in the veg tent along with a intake fan etc...

I'm wondering how you all who are using multiple 600w and/or 1000w lights are going about not tripping a circuit or causing a fire?

Click to expand...

doniboy said:

I'm wanting to setup a grow room in a spare bedroom of my rented apartment. I want to use 2 600w hps in the flowering tent and one 600w mh in the veg tent along with a intake fan etc...

I'm wondering how you all who are using multiple 600w and/or 1000w lights are going about not tripping a circuit or causing fire

Amps x volts = watts 1000 watts divide by 110 volts = bout 9 amps. So a 15 amp breaker can handle 1 1000 watt lamp and 1 600 watt lamp simultaneously but it will be maxed out. So I would use 2 600 on one circuit and 1000 on another because there are also fans timers n what not

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radrolley said:

honestly i wouldnt do anything especially grow without the landlords approval. find one that is cool with it and maybe smokes themself. some states you have to ask your landlord before growing. in all fairness it is their property and they would probably appreciate knowing about anything that could cause damage. I know if i were a landlord i wouldnt let someone grow in my place unless they knew what they were doing and not damaging the place.

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Until its legal, no one other than me will know. I don't foresee any damage happening, but if it does I and my renters insurance will cover it. I see your point though.

doniboy said:

Until its legal, no one other than me will know. I don't foresee any damage happening, but if it does I and my renters insurance will cover it. I see your point though.

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I see, I assumed it was a legal medical grow. Sounds like you have your bases covered. Good Luck and make sure you get a good carbon filter. People that don't smoke are far more sensitive to the smell than people that are around it often.