Question about wiring a light

[phillykid]

Okay I have a 400 watt MH and 1000 watt HPS that I got from insidesun a long time ago. The lamp cords are not detachable. I want to get a super sun 2, 6in air cooled reflector which comes prewired with lamp cord and socket. I use the MH for veg then switch to HPS and I want to use the reflector for both and make it easy to change. Can I just buy 2 of these
http://www.sunlightsupply.com/produ...FC47FC09915028BBCBC96408C1A6A6&c=3&kys=&pgi=1

cut the original lamp cords close to the ballast end so it won't be too long and then wire those female receptacles to the ballast so I can just switch out the ballast and bulb when it comes time to change? And what exactly do I do with that green wire with that metal ring thingy? Yeah I sound stupid but I just want to make sure that I know how to connect the ground correctly and I'm not well versed in electrical work.

Do I just cut the cords, strip a bit of wire, twist together, and then electrical tape and heat shrink wrap? Or should I use wire nuts? What's the safe way of doing it?

Thanks

 

[messn'n'gommin']

I am not familiar with inside sun, but, would it be simpler to cut off the plugs and install new 3 prong female plugs? Your cords may be a bit long but I would think it a whole lot easier, and safer, than rewiring the cords. Especially for those of us who have little experience with electrical work. Go to a building supply or a home improvement store and if you're not sure of just which plug to get, ask for help because your "boss" wants you to replace the damaged plugs for a couple of 25' 14 gauge extension cords. One more thing, make SURE you wire the black wire to the right side, the white wire to the left side, and the green wire to the top of the FEMALE plug. Good luck and hope this helps.

Namaste, mess

 

[FreezerBoy]

I'm assuming we're talking two separate ballasts? One 400 and one 1000? Because mixing and matching is bad juju.

Those plugs you link to are proprietary. Do you have a proprietary male plug coming from the lamp? If so, the proper way to use the females is open the ballasts, note the connections of all 3 wires and remove the cord. Cut a square hole in the ballast box and snap the female plug into the ballast wall. Make new connections and close the box.

Another way is, get a couple of 12 guage, 3 wire extension cords. Remove the lamp cord from the socket and replace it with the male end of one extension cord. Remove the cords from both ballasts and replace with the female ends of the ext cord. When opening either socket or ballast boxes, make note of where the green wire attaches.

 

[phillykid]

Yes 2 different ballasts. The reflector comes with the socket and lamp cord attached (sun system) so it should have that male plug. I don't want to open up the ballasts so maybe I'll just go with the extension cord.

Can't I just cut the ends off the lamp cord and from the ballast and connect them instead of removing the entire cord and wiring directly to the socket and ballast? or will that be dangerous?

 

[PharmaCan]

Can't I just cut the ends off the lamp cord and from the ballast and connect them instead of removing the entire cord and wiring directly to the socket and ballast? or will that be dangerous?

Done properly, this would be fine.

PC

 

[phillykid]

Okay so I took a closer look at my ballasts. For the 400 MH: The lamp cord has 3 wires, black which is connected to a red wire from the ballast, and there are 3 white wires connected all together (from ballast, power cord, and lamp cord). The green from the power cord is attached to a nut on the ballast enclosure. The green from the lamp cord is just cut and not attached to anything.

Same with the 1000 watt HPS the lamp cord is connected white to white and black to black and the ground is simply cut. Is this bad?

If anyone else has ballasts from insidesun you should probably check it cause I just took apart the male end of the power cord just to see how it was wired. It's one of these http://www.onestopbuy.com/1447-6620.asp although the picture looks like 240 Volt. ANyways the black wire and the ground wire were both loose. And there was a plate thingy that was facing the wrong direction so it wasn't holding the black wire down correctly. I tightened everything up but shit. I would of never thought to look at it except I was going to try to buy those leviton plugs cause they're cheaper than buying an extension cord.

Also the 400 has a 16/3 AWG power and lamp cord and the 1000 has a 14/3 AWG power cord and a 16/3 lamp cord. Does this all sound correct or should I start replacing this stuff. Cause ya know fires are kinda bad.

 

[FreezerBoy]

I may be a paranoid crybaby but, get rid of those cords and rewire like a grownup. The green is ground and it's there for your protection. The green goes to the biggest HunkO'Metal™ you can find in the immediate assembly.

The ground wire connects to the metal of the socket base. Inside the ballast box, it connects to the box itself. Note the "crimp assembly" where the cord enters the socket base. This type uses a hex nut, some are pop outs. Remove the crimp asssembly to remove the cord. Run new cord through the crimp, rewire and reassemble.

I recently moved my cab's ballast outside the cab. Rather than reassemble the ballast inside it's box, I attached it to the underside of my freezer and grounded to the freezer's metal frame. Wherever you attach the ground, sand or file the area to remove paint, dirt etc to insure a proper connection.




Wire gauge: The bigger the number, the smaller the wire. I run a 250 CMH and I won't use anything smaller than 14 gauge. With a 1000, I'd consider 12 gauge.

 

[phillykid]

I just threw out the 1000 watter and I want to find who runs inside sun and put them in an armbar. After opening the unit up and checking it out, it was a fire hazard waiting to happen. Only my wish for a new reflector and freezerboy telling me to install a proper light cord saved me from a potential fire. One of the wire nuts was melted, the cables inside were all crap, probably from heat damage, the wire insulation was beginning to crack. DO NOT GET BALLASTS from inside sun at least not refurbs.

I'm going to find a 400HPS and a CMH bulb. Thanks for your help freezerboy, I appreciate it.

peace

 

[Guest]

I may be a paranoid crybaby but, get rid of those cords and rewire like a grownup. The green is ground and it's there for your protection. The green goes to the biggest HunkO'Metal™ you can find in the immediate assembly.

The ground wire connects to the metal of the socket base. Inside the ballast box, it connects to the box itself. Note the "crimp assembly" where the cord enters the socket base. This type uses a hex nut, some are pop outs. Remove the crimp asssembly to remove the cord. Run new cord through the crimp, rewire and reassemble.

I recently moved my cab's ballast outside the cab. Rather than reassemble the ballast inside it's box, I attached it to the underside of my freezer and grounded to the freezer's metal frame. Wherever you attach the ground, sand or file the area to remove paint, dirt etc to insure a proper connection.




Wire gauge: The bigger the number, the smaller the wire. I run a 250 CMH and I won't use anything smaller than 14 gauge. With a 1000, I'd consider 12 gauge.

The wiring in all those photographs is wrong. Connections are NOT TO BE HELD IN PLACE BY THE WIRE NUT ALONE. They are to be twisted or otherwise held in place without need for the wire nut in the first place; with the wire nut giving the final, compression connection of the wires.

Those electrical connections are the definition of noob wiring and aren't by any means approved; in fact they're textbook ''how NOT to make connections with wire nuts.

The wires should be wound together in the same direction the wire nut turns when it finishes the connection; the tips of the wires should be even; and not allowed to come to a point; rather clipped off with squared shoulders, or not being clipped so the squared shoulders of the tip(s) are easily and securely gripped by the square wire inside the wire nut, the tips should be folded back - so that the part sticking furthest into the wire nut is larger than the smallest part of the cone formed by the square wire in the wire nut, so compression squeezes the wires tightly together when the wire nut's in place. The method of holding the wires in place should be adequate that even if the wire nut falls off, the electrical connection still remains.

The wire nut should be tight. Not 'sorta' tight or 'pretty' tight, but t.i.g.h.t. when the connection's made. If twisting the wire nut down causes it to spin, the connection and tips inside it are formed wrong.

Otherwise vibration can cause the wire nuts to loosen and subsequent arcing create melted plastic covers on the wire nuts and in extreme cases, a fire.

And the ground does NOT go to ''the biggest hunk of metal in the area". It goes to the F.R.A.M.E. or CHASSIS of the device or onto an approved grounding location.

 

[FreezerBoy]

The wiring on the left isn't mine. It's UL approved factory wiring.

The wiring on the right (under the freezer) is mine. Nothing is held in place by a wire nut. The wires are twisted and soldered, the caps merely prevent wayward hands from touching exposed wire. I don't know how you define T.I.G.H.T. but my caps don't turn anymore, not clockwise anyway. I damn near stripped the head off the screw when tightening the ground.

I like the idea of folding the tips over. I'll give it a try next time I rewire something.

I did not say ground to ''the biggest hunk of metal in the area". My car is in the area but, I would never ground to it. I said, "the immediate assembly," in this case the metal frame of the socket, the metal frame of the ballast box, or in my case the metal frame of the freezer.

 

[Guest]

When UL takes responsibility for the wiring in that box, that's their business. They disassemble components submitted to them for testing and check connections for tightness, hence ruggedness and reliability. When they find wire nuts have been put on by hand, and some aren't fully tight, they recommend to the manufacturer they be put on by machine or some method that delivers more torque than simple manual twisting, so connections aren't subject to variance, and failure.

Therefore the standard for wiring inside a sealed assembly, not expected to be opened by the end user, is different than for home construction, and user assembled components. Standards for adequate ruggedness and reliability of assembly have been ensured through previous, third-party testing in commercial equipment.


When you decide to take responsibility for telling people how to assemble things, that's a complete other story.


When you tell people who potentially know nothing about wiring things - nor any standards concerning safety & reliability, you take those people's lives into your hands, as well as the lives of people in the same house/apartment complex, and you need to make clear to them, what is what.

Communication where reliability & safety are integral aspects of intent, isn't primarily an exercise in creative writing. It's an exercise in C.L.E.A.R. writing so there is minimal, potential misinterpretation, of what you're trying to convey, in the areas where end user safety, is likely to be affected .

Pointing out the assembly you photographed as UL approved, claiming you 'don't know what I mean by T.I.G.H.T.' and saying after the fact, 'I soldered those connections' is adequate safety consideration, emphasizes the point I'm making to you.

Technical communications where people's safety is critical is a skill. Doing it while simultaneously instilling a natural, intuitive sense of what's truly safe & what's not, is an art.

If you plan to develop that skill and one day practice that art, then good. If you plan to do it through the invention of erroneous, mythical terminologies, inaccurate representations inherently misleading to people whose lives you potentially impact, and whom it's patently obvious you're not considering -

(the great number of people who have similar questions, but never post, because they read thru, look at some photos, and think - "Oh I've got it all answered right here" and never even ask clarifying questions)

then you're going have a problem. If you lament there are no standards for describing these things on internet forums, you're in good company. It's a long known and well documented problem.

I'm not going to go further. The point's made. The guy whose thread you've helped in, is helped: but you don't know how many people will read this thread, and believing all is clear, and sensing the great feeling of relief the problem's solved, work on their own in private, emulating what you've shown photographically. Now: what if I hadn't come in and we hadn't discussed those soldered connections?
This is the inherent problem in internet forums where there are no guaranteed standards for posting on technology issues. I'm not going to come back around for a few hours to discuss it further but you need to recognize the point and get it through your head that just because you can't see or even control who reads and takes inference from what you say it doesn't mean, it's not happening.
Give some long thought to what I'm telling you and you're going to come to a much deeper understanding of why electricians and other technical personnel in forums get so upset when people who are just trying to help, post up things that seem completely innocuous to them; and come in railing about how ''you don't know wtf you're talking about" blah, blah blah.

It's a valid point. And the sooner you catch onto it the fewer heads you're going to wind up butting against in the long haul.

And while I understand there's nothing but the desire to help people in the first, natural response, which will likely be "Well, SOMEbody needed to say something," I'll point out to you, that if the 5, 6, 8 or ten qualified personnel who WOULD be willing to help more, weren't arguing pedantic points with forum new guys who WANT to help but don't understand the pitfalls of open forums' technical issue conversation, more than they're actually talking with thread authors about their problems, they WOULD be in the forum helping them more often.

It's like that commercial about the employment agency where the pro tennis player is trying to return volleys, and suddenly every noob on earth is on the court rushing to return it for him.

Don't be mistaken about it: that's EXACTLY what the situation is.

Now I'm gonna go and leave you to think about what I said. Time's short and things have to get done. I'm right and the sooner you catch onto that the easier it's going to be in the long run.