Hi all. I’m upgrading my grow room to have 3 tables with 8 lights over each. 
My electrician is being an absolute chortle and despite coordinating and putting in a new transformer outside with the electric company, he’s made himself unavailable to answer questions or do interior work for weeks.
The gavita stats are:
We have a 260amp meter. How many of the 240v units can I run on a line? What size wire and what size breaker?
Please and Thank You!!
12awg wire on a 2 pole 20A breaker. 4 light per breaker. This will keep it under the 16A trip load of the breaker.
Thanks Druid. On that logic, could I get larger wire and do 40 amp breakers to run a full table of lights (x8) on a breaker?.. Me thinks 200amp panel wont be big enough for 24 lights plus fans and dehumid… BUT I will be cycling them ON/OFF in tandem so maybe…
I wouldn’t. What I said is code. You go higher on more lights it causes more draw which is more heat. And just with your grow room even with all you have you’re not going to get near 200amps on your service. Keep it simple. Keep it safe.
Manufacturer says if we run 220V we should pull 2.93amps per unit.
Yep. I was keeping it simple. 2 breakers per table. But you can put 5 at 15amps.
Is it panel space you’re worried about?
Overall just unsure of all things electrical. Panel space, panel size, # of breakers etc but I think we can get there. Have a big transformer from the electric company so possible to add on as needed.
48 lights, 2 dehumidifiers, 4 wall mounts from 2 minisplits, fans, and kitchen appliances.
Just a lot going through my head right now. THANK YOU.
24 gavita 1750’s total? If it were me, I would set each table up on its own controller. Most of the driver manufacturers don’t recommend more than two drivers per circuit without a soft start, due to possibilities of nuisance trip from inrush current. That would take care of potential issues with timer loading too.
48 total gavitas. 6 rows of 8
I’m not sure if you have big enough service either.
Me either. Which is… fine. I can build out half and upgrade later this summer but obviously I’m going to have words with my electrician if this doesn’t work…
48 lights at 2.9amps per = 139 amp. The line item from my electrical invoice says: 320AMP ALL IN ONE PACKAGE (200 AMP BREAKERS, BYPASS KIT, LUG KIT)
You are at 75 percent capacity with just the lights? Since you should never exceed 80 percent of max capacity… are you sure you can do this safely? Excess extended load heats up wire hidden in walls and heats up connections in outlets, this eventually causes wire sheathing to dry out and crack and terminals to become loose and potentially arc. Be careful thats all.
@Cannabian Def. Thanks for the info. Will double check all of this with the elec. but as he’s not responding, I wanted to double check before purchasing anything.
Cheers.
If hes not responding Id be concerned
I AM highly concerned. But what do you do. He’s already done half the work…
Get a different guy? Or figure out what your service size is and how the circuits have been distributed on your own. If the panel is already hooked up to mains power, look at the breakers in the panel box, you can follow the hot wires all the way to the boxes to count how many are in each breaker. A 20 amp breaker should never have more than 15 amps of continuous load at any given time. 15 amps x 120 volts is 1600 watts plus or minus. A few watts over isnt a big deal. That ensures your wires dont heat up or your contacts etc. That means if he has 3 outlets on the same circuit you cant max out one and expect to use the other outlets right? They will be dead to you. Thats why its important to plan your grow room so you circuits are where they will be needed ie. HVAC on one breaker, lights on 2 breakers maybe? Pumps ans fans on a 15 amp circuit? Heaters and dehumidifiers on another 20 amp… you get my point here right?
Yup. Cheers!
