Okay so I have a problem with my room setup. After testing my digitial ballast 600w for only an hour it was extremely hot. My grow space is in a small closet. about 4 feet by 3 feet. Not to mention my ballast is freakin heavy. How? where? do I put my hot ballast so it doesnt burn anything?
Another question I have is where should I run all this electricity? I have my 600 W Ballast, some flourecents, air pumps. Im guessing a normal power strip will not do it. I want this to be a safe and fire free enviroment. any suggestions?
thanks
Is there any chance you can put the ballast OUTSIDE of the cabinet? You'll still need to ventilate the cabinet as the bulb will get really hot. I have a Mom cabinet with a 400w fixture inside. The ballast is outside the cabinet but I do have a duct (connected to a vortex fan) that penetrates the cabinet wall and is attached right to the light hood. The other side of the hood (exhaust) also has a duct connected to it and it penetrates the cabinet discharging the hot air.
What you need to be concerned about is the size of the breaker feeding the outlet that you plan on plugging the power strip in to....not the power strip itself. You either have 15 or 20 amp breakers feeding the plugs in your house. You have more than 1 outlet on a breaker too. To give you a ROUGH idea of how to figure it out, divide the watts by the voltage to get the amps....SO, a 600 watt light divided by 120 volts gives you less than 4 amps. Assuming you add a few air pumps and a few other small devices, 1 outlet with a power strip should be fine. But again.....you need to know what other outlets are connected to that breaker and what is plugged in to those outlets. A 2000w hair dryer is a good example.
Lastly, you should never put more than 80% load on a breaker. SO, if you're on a 20 amp circuit you don't want to go above 16 amps AND, if you decide to wire a dedicated circuit (completely new line) right from the panel to your grow area use #12 wire for 20 amps or #14 for a 15amp circuit. The breaker protects the WIRE, not the device.
