Thanks for the link, had a quick look. Not sure it protects your whole house though, looks like a two pole 15 amp device that provides surge protection in addition to normal circuit protection for the two circuits it supplies.

I used to work for an electical firm in town (on their computer side of the business) and we installed various forms of what you see in that link. Many of them did protect the entire house and were very reasonable in price. I can't remember the specifics but I could try to find out if someone wanted me to.

ok im heading out for supper and going to be getting some wire please some one text me on this ok

if i just run the 3x250's on a 15 amp breaker is that enough.

204-573-8021 thanks

on its own if you stagger the start times by a few minuits it should work. but if you pop the breaker you lose all your lights, better to put one of them on a different circut.

Steve

cool i will do that man thanks

Yup it does the whole house, it is the first breaker on each phase, it instantly sends all surges to the ground, as electricity will always flow the fastest and shortest route to ground. At least that (or something like it) is what I read back when I was researching it.

It comes in a panel pack @ home depot, pop in that isle next time and read up on it (box and pamphlet I believe), it's a pretty cool gadget.

3x250 is 750, which is less than half of what a 15 amp circuit is rated for (1800 max, 1200 continous I think). There may be a somewhat higher draw on start up but not necessarily, depends on your ballasts, bulbs etc.

While you're out picking up the wire, why not grab an EM100 energy monitor. Looks a lot like a large timer and will show any number of paramaters of what you have plugged into it, current, voltage, wattage, Kwh, even cost if you enter your hydro rate into the thing. When I checked my 2 MH 250s with this device, it actually showed they were drawing somewhat less than the rated 250 watts. I'm currently using cheapo Plusrite 14000K lamps and the two of them draw just over 400 amps once fully fired up. If I remember correctly when I monitored the wattage with the EM100 on start up, they drew even less until fully warmed up. Instead of a surge at startup as with most other components, particularly motors, my MH set up actually builds up wattage slowly to less than max rated. 10000K XM lamps which I had installed before, drew about 485 watts when fully warmed up on my Advance M58 magnetic ballasts. I'd say if the 3x250 MH are all you're going to run on a single 15 amp circuit, you should be fine.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/pr...45524443279714

Very interesting, I'll definitely have a look see. I've got a Siemens 100 amp panel which replaced an old "Pushmatic" panel that had only 12 breakers. It's an older home and when I first checked out the old Pushmatic E panel it was pretty scary. There were no spare circuits whatsoever and the previous owners had an extra set of 240 volt wires in there. At some point they installed an electric dryer to replace a natural gas one and this meant that the central air conditioning had to be disconnected to run the dryer, ha ha. They were swapping wires on the 30 amp 2 phase breaker every time either the electric dryer or the air con was the priority!

except a 250 watt MH normaly draws more like 400 watts. (mine were true HQI ballasts and ran at 456 watts) which is 1200 continuious, some electric do underdrive the bulbs, which is why electric ballasts generly have lower outputs than mag ballasts. on start up they can go in excess of 600 watts. so like I stated with staggered starts they will work, but better to have one on another circut. same with the pumps heaters ect.. anything that could kill your tank if you lose it.

Steve

Gotcha and totally understand, that's why in my post I also said to grab a power monitor so that you can check/confirm what the draw of your particular set up is. As mentioned, mine draws less and I also mentioned that a different set up could draw more. The power monitors are less than 30 bucks depending on which one you buy and can be a very handy device to have around the house.

A 250 MH that draws 400? That seems a bit steep and sounds like an inefficient set up. Pre mature burnout etc..