Electrical set-up.

[niall]

Morning folks. I’m looking for some photos of the way other people have got their ballast, timer etc set up. By set up I mean, do you fix them to a board outside the groom. I’m gonna fix my gear to a wooden sheet and keep out of the tent. 

Any links or photos eould be appreciated. 

[ursus1000]

Most ballasts are outside the grow space to cut down on heat.A lot of folks use a brick to put their ballast on. I have mine on floor tiles lifted off the floor (electricity and water is not a good thing),and some folks do use a board fixed to a wall and screw their ballast to that,but ballasts can get hot,and I wouldn't want my ballast on a piece of wood.

[unity]

Sitting on bricks on the floor, just outside the tent.  nice simple and safe. 

[Amnesia]

Mine is inside the growdrobe and sits on housebricks, i've also made some little metal legs to raise it slightly off the bricks. My air intake is also directed at the ballast so the ballast is always cool to the touch.

CMH ballasts do give off quite a bit of heat too which is why i direct the intake at it, never used to bother with the Lumatek hps though as it ran much cooler. I don't have no issues with heat as the intake is from a cool source.

[Laphroaig]

All my ballasts live on wooden shelves in a nook next door in the corner of the nursery (well away from any water) as they give off quite a bit of heat I decided to have them in a different room than the main grow and although I doubt it would make any difference if one caught fire they all sit on top of ceramic tiles on the shelves.  My timer/contactor is homemade, WiFi controlled so no dials or buttons, just an IP65 box on the wall beside the ballasts with panel mounted 13a sockets in the front.  Each socket has an individual contactor and can be controlled manually via my phone or tablet or automatically by scheduling on and off times and/or by linking it wirelessly to one of the temperature sensors in the grow room I can get it to turn on and off in response to set temperature triggers to maintain an optimum environment.  My advice is to get your electrics up and out of the way of any spills, bricks simply don't cut it for me, get em all up above waist height at least.

[unity]

@Laphroaig that sounds like an amazing setup bro, is it something that anyone could do or more a custom job for a sparky?  Could you go into more details if the former, or do you already have a post here doing so?

[Laphroaig]

8 hours ago, unity said:

@Laphroaig that sounds like an amazing setup bro, is it something that anyone could do or more a custom job for a sparky?  Could you go into more details if the former, or do you already have a post here doing so?

It's a work in progress, I haven't really got it to the point where I'm 100% happy with it.  As it stands it works but still lacks all the functionality I want from it mainly due to the 3rd party cloud software also it isn't a very pretty solution and to be honest I'm a bit embarrassed.  Having said that it's very easy to make as all the parts are off the shelf and only minimal electrical knowledge required, it's just a case of wiring up the bits. 

 

I'm currently exploring more elegant ways to skin this particular cat but so far my attempts at getting down and dirty with the microcontroller boards hasn't yet yielded fruit, it'll be a long hard slog but I'll figure it all out eventually...  or not.  Meanwhile if you want to do something similar to what I've currently knocked together you'll need 13a panel mounted sockets, a box, a small box of DIN rail terminals with jumpers etc. some 16a 2-pole NO DIN rail mounted lighting contactors and a Sonoff WiFi switch of some description.  The basic single channel ones start at around £5 each and the "pro" four channel switches are about £20.  Then just wire up the contactors between your supply and the sockets and connect the A1 and A2 terminals of the contactors to the wifi switches.  To tie in the grow room temps get a Sonoff TH10 switch with a temp/humidity sensor controlling the circulation fan in your room.  Everything else is just software. 

[unity]

Awesum, will take note of your advice   Random post like this are exactly why I like this place 

[1312]

This is how i have mine, always worked for me

 

[Joint hogger]