Hello, I am building a room in my basement in which I plan on running either 2 600W HID or 3 400W HID lighting systems. I was wondering if I put them all on a power strip then plugged into timer which plugs into the wall. Would this be a problem? Do I need to get a controller instead of a power strip that plugs into a 240V? I wanted to do it right but the controllers can run 200 - 300 plus I need someone to wire a 240V plug for it....
if your ballast runs off a 240 and you can run a dedicated line for power just for the ballasts, do it.. its a no brainer...
The ballasts I am looking at I believe run off 120V plugs. So plugging them into a regular heavy duty power strip and then a timer and then into 120V regular plug wouldnt work? I was talking about 240V because I found nice controllers that plug into 240V plug but can take 6 120V lighting systems connected to them.
It depends on the amperage draw of the ballasts, the circuit, the rating of the power strip and timer. As an example if your ballast draws 5 amps and you had 3 of them it would be 15 amps. That would be too much for a 15 amp circuit, you do not want to exceed 80% of the rating of the circuit or device. So you need to add up the amps you would be using and compare them to the circuit/power strip/timer. Most home circuits are 15 or 20 amp and don't forget about other things on the same circuit, freezers, washers, TV's etc.