Hi,

I don't have much cash and so my equipment has to do the most work it can
(like it dose with most people)

I am doing a flower cab and a seeds cab; both of which need 12 hours of light,
and I thought that one of those relays where it puts one light on the other off and then swaps them round
would work best for my set-up.

I have seen the diy relay timer thingy here but that controls only one light-
Is there someone who knows about controlling two lights, like I said, one off and one on ***please***?

cheers
quickly

hello matey!

What sort of lights do you have?

Hantshaze.

2 x 600w HID

&

2 x 1000w HID

Thanks Hantshaze

i think you gonna need 2 contactors running that amount of watts.

With a good quallity timer on each. Thats what i would do anyway.

A lot betta sefe than sorry geez!

Hantshaze..........

Thanks Lucas and Hantshaze,

Both of your replies are seriously appreciated,
espeically your time - a major thanks guys

As far as safety gose - I always spend good on that - never scrimp

I have seen such a switch-over contactor for sale, so I know it can be done
and I think what Lucas has done may be the way

I promise to sit down after tea and work your reply out, Lucas.

If I get the answer for sure I'll post it here.

A major thanks again guys - you're the best there is.

This is the type of relay I'm thinking - I don;t know if it has enough 'legs'

hXXp://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37495

30A @ 240v DPDT

Any thoughts?

cheers
quickly

Thanks, again, Lucasmarshell, I appreciate your input. ;-)

The Americans call it a flip flop, should be easy enough but they go for one ballast running both lights... not too sure on that one myself. Also, Greens do a contactor with 2 power powerstrips, one off while the other is on.

Different contactors have different ratings, ive always used a 1kw one but for your lights a 4kW Timer Contactor will be definately needed. you dont need more than 1 contactor waste of sockets imho.

thanks lazi and pie

yes greens do that but that is to run two ballasts in a flip flop arrangement

I want to run one ballast with two lamps ...

Manually I could switch the ballast off, pull the 'on' lamp out and plug the 'off' lamp in
to switch the lamps over - what with me being out etc I wanted to do this automatically.

I'm thinking that maybe a PIC controller will do what I want - with suitable relays as you
guys have kindly pointed out.

don't use relays, AT ALL, use a proper lighting contactor. the best are merlin gerin multi9 contactors, they are specially made for HID lighting and can handle the capacitive and inductive elements of HID's, have a look on ebay and you can usually pick one up cheap, i got mine for about 5 quid (you're looking at 30+ new), if you register with the schneider website (the manufacturer) after a lot of searching about you can find the data sheet for them (the link at the bottom of this post is just the brochure, can't find the pdf through google) they are by far the highest rated lighting contactors i can find in terms of the nominal running current against switching current ( a 10A relay may be able to handle 10A running, but it will never handle the 100A inrush on the capacitor in your HID light)

you can also get them with 2 normally closed contacts (which will switch one set of lights) and two normally open contacts (which will switch the other set of lights on when the other set switches off)

http://www.neweysonline.co.uk/neweys/pdf/M...s_Technical.pdf

just quickly searched merlin gerin contactor on ebay and there were quite a few for sale, also try multi 9 contactor or CT, just searching through the frikkin maze that is the schneider website to find the data sheet to find out the loading specs for y'all.

fuck a duck, i found it. here's the link, although not sure if you can view it if you're not logged into the website? anything you wanna know just gimme a shout though. for some reason, on this particular datasheet, they haven't listed the loading specs for 600watt sodiums, they're not commonly used in industry, there is actually a full datasheet for these contactors that list pretty much every light concievable, but fucked if i can find it now? either way this will suffice, just treat a 600w as a 1000w (always overcompensate with electrics!) also you should be looking at the table for "high pressure sodium vapour lamp (with parrallel connection)" the parrallel connection refers to the capacitor, the fact that with these contactors you can actually have MORE lamps due to the capacitor shows how good they are, because they are limited by the inductive arc, rather than the capacitive inrush, which is the case with most contactors. capacitive inrush is what welds timers on, inductive arcing burns contacts out, so your light wont switch on, and we all know what is usually the case with timers and HID lights

just in case the pdf wont load:


Type of lighting application
230 V single-phase circuit
Maximum number of lamps for a given rating
CT contactors
Power (W) 16 A 25 A 40 A 63 A 100 A

High pressure sodium vapour lamp (with parallel correction)
70 6 9 18 25
150 6 9 18 25
250 2 3 6 9
400 2 4 8 12
1000 1 2 4 6



the number on the furthest left, is the wattage of your lamp, the numbers to the right of this are the number of lamps you can have on the contactor, for each of the nominal current ratings. i.e. if you have a 16A Multi9 ct you can have 1 1000w lamps running from it, if you have 2 1000w lamps, you will need a 25A contactor, 4 x 1000watt lamps you will need a 40A contactor, etc


http://www.global-download.schneider-elect...20%28web%29.pdf