Tutorial: Wiring a 240v 30amp circuit sub box

Most hobist's will reach a point where they can no long get their desirable amount of power out of what their house already has wired. When this happens its usually best to Install a 240v sub box from the main breaker box in your house. There are many different brands of sub boxes but the one I will be talking about today is the Titan Helios 4 (http://www.titancontrols.net/media/8177/helios4_illus.pdf)..

With the Helios 4 you can run 4000 watts of one circuit breaker and run all your lights off one timer.

Things you will need:

30 amp double pole breaker (make sure it fits your breaker box they are all different shapes and sizes.)

10-3 10 gauge wire. ( should have 2 hot wires and a neutral or ground wire)

wire cutter

flat head screw driver

fire extinguisher just to be safe! cell phone near by, 30 amps can KILLL a man a few times over make sure others are home and the power is off before you do anything!!!!!! Make sure you are being cautious when fucking with the power and I am not to be held responsible. shah

when its all said and done all you are doing is connecting 3 wires on both ends of the wire. not that hard ppl!

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lets get started!!

Before you do anything with electricity you will have to do the manual labor of laying the wire to were you want your sub box. Ussually this is a pain in the ass, going threw crawl spaces and dealing with spiders and their webs

After you have your wire Laid thru your house and have one end near (NOT TOUCHING QUITE YET) your main breaker box in your house and the other in the grow room you can start your wiring.

1. wire the Helios

On the back of your Helios sub box there will be a small 3x5 panel, open this panel. Inside will Be 3 terminals Labeled "hot" "neutral" "hot". First connect the Bare copper wire (neutral wire, ground wire whatever you want to call it) to the Terminal label neutral. Next connect your two hot wires (usually black and white, can be black and red) to the Terminals labeled Hot. now close up the panel on the back of the helios.

2. Turn off the power. all of it. To do this turn all the breakers in your house to the off position(all the power should be off now). Just to be safe I like to then go outside the house and there will be a box usually directly behind the breaker in your house. On the box outside your house there will be a big lever pull it to disconnect the power to your house. Now you defiantly wont get a shock!!

3. remove the panel cover from you breaker box. now feed the wire threw the bottom of your breaker box (there will be a hole where all the other wires come thru). now attach your ground wire to the terminal on the Ground Bar at the top or side of your breaker box. (it will have a bunch of other bare copper wires connected to it)

4. connect the 2 hot wires (it doesn't matter which ones goes on which terminal they are both 120v lines to make the 240v) to the Terminals on your breaker(the 30 amp double pole you bought), make sure the connections are very tight, you don't want it coming loose. Now make sure your new breaker is off position when you put it into your breaker box.

4.5 I feel there Is a lot to be said for running the wires nice and cleanly threw your breaker box. What i mean is all the wires bend into whatever shape you bend them to, so its nice and safer i feel to make nice 90 degree angles and keep wires not tangled and do not have your ground wire anywhere near the bare hot wire where the connection is made at the terminal on your breakers. Ya Digggg

5. Put the panel cover back on. if you did everything right all your wires should be connected to something obvisouly.

6. Make sure the helios in your grow room is turned off. Now you can go out side your house and connect the house to power again. Just push the lever you pulled down up

7. next go inside and turn on all the breakers on, last turn on the new breaker you just installed/added. Then go to your helios sub breaker box and turn it on if it makes a nice humming noise you succeed! I have yet to hear the noise it makes when it is not right but im sure its not a good one.



If you have other questions PM me and ill def help you. I will try to add pictures to go with this soon.

Hope this helped

 

There isn't an exact way to tell if you house can handle it without adding up the max Amps of every appliance (everything you plug in) in your house. depending on how Big you house is Your main breaker is somewhere between 100amps-200amps (says right inside the breaker if you take off the main panel, should be a sticker somewhere). Most houses can handle It fine though. The amount of Amps a house is using is always changing. If your dishwasher,garage door, washer/dryer, stove, microwave, all the lights in your house, stereo, other shit that uses lots of electricity its going be using a lot more amps.

That being said a 1000 watt ballast runs of 4.5 amps (mine does) on 240v instead of 9 amps on a 120v. They are both using/producing 1000 watts though. So If you are running 4 1000 watt ballasts on 240v you are using 18 amps VS. 36 amps on a 120v.

I'd figure out how many amps all your major appliances are and add with what your grow room. id try to stay 20-30 amps under your houses max.

Have you taken off you breaker panel yet to see if there are 2 free spaces for the double pole? A double pole breaker is one of the breakers in your box where 2 of the on/off switches are connected together.