I wouldn’t trust a big grow in an old house with fuses. It doesn’t matter what you put in the basement if you burn the house down.
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This 1000%
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That’s a good point. I’m not familiar with fuses. All I’ve worked with are breakers…Siemens, Eaton, zinsco etc
@Autumn_Ridge_Hemp if fuses are a safety concern then good looking out
Fuses require replacing after blowing (right?) whereas a breaker can just be flipped back on after popping.
How do the fuses equate to safety hazard? Just bc the panel/wiring is probably outdated if they are still using fuses?
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It isn’t so much that fuses are inherently unsafe, it’s just that you only find them in old houses that have not been updated for decades. Any wiring that old is sketchy, in my opinion. It was certainly never built with the op’s purpose in mind.
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Edit:
Lol I guessed the answer as you were typing it.
Not just that but houses that old probably have paper insulation - good to keep loads on those low…very very very low
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@SmokinSupply post a pic of the service panel with cover removed please
Just to see the general condition of things. How long have you had the house and have you ever had an electrician do any repairs of any kind inside the box?
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Would you recommend running dedicated breakers to each light control box with brand new romex and conduit exterior (outside the wall) mounted?
@SubstituteCreature
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I am overabundantly safe so I always recommend a second box by far but then again it was just how I was taught. - i’ve been doing this for a little bit so it was originally 1000’s (with big shitty ballasts that is better used as a murder weapon) all down so that first flip was a fucking beater - better to trip the first one and save damage to the main just in case of equipment failure and having your dick in your hands if all of your shit fries
I also like to make everything as low tech as possible with the big fucking heavy metal timers to control everything in one swoop. Less error involved. I feel like outside of 120v relays are really fucking hit or miss and plugging a box into a 120v outlet to control a 240 or whatever sketches me the motherfuck out no less a little tiny plastic box dealing with it. And if you look inside of those there is the tiniest little pissant fuse controlling it all, which is all well and good until it REALLY pops which i’ve seen once before. All my responses about electricity in zap-the-fuck-out-of-you levels have basic safety and build quality in mind
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And making the whole house hum…mwaaaaaaaahhhhhh
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God fucking forbid you play a high gain amplifier near them too…
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Use to use them to heat my house, thawed some bacon on the old old ones in the 90s one time.
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If the main is fused, one good solution is to run an undersized automation breaker after the fuse for your sub panel. For instance, with a 200A service, install a 150A fuse in the load center to a 100A automation breaker and then to the sub.
Generally, cloth insulated wire is okay in larger sizes such as the service entrance cable. It’s the smaller ungrounded cables to the outlets and devices that are problematic, but like others are said, you should really install a new sub and subsequent wiring for the new equipment.
As far as timers, I prefer using N.O. contactors energized by a robust relay timer or PLC (big fan of the siemens logo line for this). This makes for a fail safe scheme where the lights will always fail off rather than get stuck on. I’m sure most here would prefer to flower early rather than re-veg in case if a failure. Also makes it easier to have one timer control multiple devices (UV, CO2 controls etc)
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What is it about the Siemens PLC that you like? I always resort to Allen Bradley because it”s what 95% of the factories around here use. I’ve installed a few Siemens systems but I know very little about programming them. It seemed like it was very expensive to get into programming the Siemens equipment.
I mean that logo software is like $100 and super easy visual programming.
As far as TIA for the big boy stuff, there’s a lot of things I like. For one, the hardware is substantially cheaper and in my experience more robust than AB. Safety integration through network communication is way easier and requires less stuff (profisafe and profisafe RT are so fucking easy). I also like the drives integration
Edit: I think my seat for TIA including safety and wincc (HMI designer) was like $1200. Considering we’ve got probably $25k in hardware in the building it’s money well spent
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I’m still using autopilot master greenhouse controllers (and a backup unit) And have a blueprint bac2 as a backup (brand new in box for sale if anyone needs one)
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That’s great, but he never mentions dollars per watt. It’s the breakdown bean counters look for.
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That’s interesting, my experience with the Siemens parts and pieces were that they felt very chincy, though they are significantly cheaper. When my current employer looked into getting into Siemens service and programming for a customer it seemed like it was 30k for the laptop and classes. When I installed the controls for the cut floor for a mostly automated hog processing facility the controls were all Siemens except for the vision systems that were Allen Bradley. I liked that the safety was separate from the controls logic, it seems like that would make programming it easier but I never got to get much more into it than putting the thing together.