I'm not sure if I posted on the right part of the forum. I just made an account to ask questions just tbh. I'm planning to start soon, by next week hopefully. I got almost everything done. All that's left to buy are bulbs and surge protectors/power strips. And that's where most of the questions would be about. I'm starting with a closet grow using CFL's. I do believe we might have some people here good with electrical stuff. I'm worried since I will be running a lot of electricity (well, for me it's a lot. I know there're setups which has loads of electricity compared to mine.) So here's the breakdown of what's going to run Veg room -6pcs 25 watts 6500k CFL (150 watts) Flowering Room -12pcs 25 watts 2700K CFL (300 watts) -2 pcs 22 watts? 8" exhaust fans 230v(44 watts?) That's roughly 500 watts in power. Here's the thing. The 2 wall outlets I have in my room are a couple of feet away from my 2 closets I'll be using. Now I'm no electricity expert that seems a lot to me. The thing here is I'm planning to use an extension, a surge protector with a power strip to be exact. Now here's what I was planning. Get a surge protector and an extension cord, have everything plugged in the surge protector and have an extension cord plugged straight to my wall outlet. (But I read online that I shouldn't be using an extension cord in between a wall outlet and a surge protector or another power strip) Or Cut the wire of my surge protector, get a heavy duty wire long enough to have it plugged directly to my wall outlet. To be honest, I barely know what I'm talking about. What are your suggestions? Setting up a new wall outlet is not an option. I just want to know if what's the safest approach for this. Also, the exhaust fan's wire is too short to reach the area where I'm planning to put my surge protector at. Would it be okay for me to cut the wire and just extend it by connecting some wire using electric tape? Thanks.
It's important to know when your circuit breakers will trip, as well as which breakers control which outlets in your home. Once you know the rating (usually listed as a current in amperes, or by a power rating in watts.) These mean the same thing, take your household voltage and multiply by the current draw and you get the power rating. Now that you know how much power you can safely draw on one breaker make sure that your total current draw won't flip the breaker. If it will, use the extension cord and surge protector to give some of the load on another circuit breaker. As far as why not to use power strips I think that pertains to non-surge-protectors. You definitely wouldn't want to wire the inside of a house permanently like this, but for your use it should be fine as long as both the extension and the splitter are rated for your current draw. Maybe someone else has some more insight on that but I don't see why you couldn't extend and split
500w/120v=4.1a It's really not a lot. I ran a 400w cfl array off a single $1 cord in a surge protector for years 24/0 and the cord never even got warm. I'm no expert but this is stuff the average homeowner should know, how much power is running through each breaker and what they can handle, what is too much, cord and socket ratings, etc. Making fruity lamps out of random objects is actually a hobby for some people, wiring a socket and mounting it on something is really cheap and simple. Wiring a few sockets on the same line is just as simple. Make sure that all of your plugs and connections are off the floor, use zip ties and mount your surge protectors on something. A little water on the floor can turn into an expensive problem if your connections get wet. 3 surge protectors running 800w off a single, medium-duty 50' cord: (third one in the box) Simple stuff, google how to wire a light socket to fill in the gaps.
Most likely you are on a 15 amp breaker. Provided you don't have much else on that circuit you should be fine. Just ensure you buy a good heavy duty extension cord and all should be well.