Best Surge Protection for HID

[Lord Bonkey]

So last night we had one heck of a storm blow through that caused a decent surge and then an outage

when I looked at my light bulb it was black and burnt out.... like slag spray inside burnt out :P

So my question is whats the best way to go about protecting from this in the future?
Is there a powerbar made for this hobby yet?
I was pluged into the wall directly, no bar, no timer.

 

[oldskol4evr]

So last night we had one heck of a storm blow through that caused a decent surge and then an outage

when I looked at my light bulb it was black and burnt out.... like slag spray inside burnt out :P

So my question is whats the best way to go about protecting from this in the future?
Is there a powerbar made for this hobby yet?
I was pluged into the wall directly, no bar, no timer.

put a gfci recepticul in the wall ,replace the reg recepticul,cant spell for shit,codes are one every were water is in my state,they work for every thing but t5ho,i never could get my light past 4 bulbs without popping the gfci plug,reset and do it again,went back to reg recepticul and worked fine,it will pop that breaker before your light and any thing else you have plugged in it,you probally have one right in your bathroom,if it has a reset button,thats what you want,it will also flip when you have to much plugged in,pop that breaker before it gets to your fuse panel

 

[Lord Bonkey]

put a gfci recepticul in the wall ,replace the reg recepticul,cant spell for shit,codes are one every were water is in my state,they work for every thing but t5ho,i never could get my light past 4 bulbs without popping the gfci plug,reset and do it again,went back to reg recepticul and worked fine,it will pop that breaker before your light and any thing else you have plugged in it,you probally have one right in your bathroom,if it has a reset button,thats what you want,it will also flip when you have to much plugged in,pop that breaker before it gets to your fuse panel

Wouldnt the ballast firing trip it at start up?

I will give it a shot :)

 

[oldskol4evr]

Wouldnt the ballast firing trip it at start up?

I will give it a shot :)

never has mine and i run 2 400 watt HID lights,2 exhaust fans,i had 2 recepticls mounted to a sheet of plywood,mounted under was balllast and controlers for fans all on one board,2ft wide 4 ft long,nice and tight

 

[Lord Bonkey]

never has mine and i run 2 400 watt HID lights,2 exhaust fans,i had 2 recepticls mounted to a sheet of plywood,mounted under was balllast and controlers for fans all on one board,2ft wide 4 ft long,nice and tight

im running 2 1k hids do you think that would make much of a difference or should i just be running a 60a sub to my room and hard wiring surge protection into the panel

 

[oldskol4evr]

 

[oldskol4evr]

View attachment 897250View attachment 897249

metal box for the receptical,screwed into a plywood sheet,i run one ballast and one fan on each,ballast in the gfci fans filter and fan on reg recepticul,i cant answer your question for wiring,i made sure and hard wired into a 20 amp breaker with only a couple reg wall recepticul not being used,so i had the full 20 amps to play with,then i had a attic open in the ceiling,i crawled up there and put a y pipe and split right in top a house register for ac to the closet,ran another vent in attic to the eve of house and to a soffit going outside for fresh air,exhaust heat went right out attic threw the ridge vent,damn nice setup ,i miss it a lot,finish remodel and sold house for 3 times what i paid for it,this house gonna take a while,the house mentioned took 5 yrs to finish and i live in them while i work on them,you notice the number on the box,i had my main panel labeled were the breakers went,so if by chance the did pop the breaker i would know which one was giving me hell,they never did and i had a lot of shit running on the 2 boxes like this

 

[Dirtbag]

I'm not an electrician but I'm pretty sure CFCI operate differently than surge protectors. GFCI trips when the load is different between the hot and neutral wire, where a surge protector trips when max voltage is exceeded. Most surge protectors also have built in GFCI but I dont think GFCI works for surge protection. But I could be wrong.

 

[cemchris]

replace whatever breaker the circuit is on in the box/sub panel with a protected breaker. They aren't cheap tho. usually like 30 to 40 bucks vs 6 to 8 for reg breakers. You will pay that much or more for a legit power strip that can hold amperage like that or more.

One thing is never go cheap on surge protectors. I lost 2 ballasts this way. Pay the money for a good one.

 

[MIMedGrower]

I'm not an electrician but I'm pretty sure CFCI operate differently than surge protectors. GFCI trips when the load is different between the hot and neutral wire, where a surge protector trips when max voltage is exceeded. Most surge protectors also have built in GFCI but I dont think GFCI works for surge protection. But I could be wrong.

I believe this is correct. The breaker should have popped if the surge was so high. Maybe old breaker?

 

[Lord Bonkey]

I believe this is correct. The breaker should have popped if the surge was so high. Maybe old breaker?

It popped just not before the damage was done

 

[Lord Bonkey]

replace whatever breaker the circuit is on in the box/sub panel with a protected breaker. They aren't cheap tho. usually like 30 to 40 bucks vs 6 to 8 for reg breakers. You will pay that much or more for a legit power strip that can hold amperage like that or more.

One thing is never go cheap on surge protectors. I lost 2 ballasts this way. Pay the money for a good one.

Perfect this is exactly what I hope existed

I'll check that out tonight

Merci merci

 

[pdasterly]

why not just get whole house surge protector?