Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

one 1000-watt HID to a 15, 20, or 25 ampere 120-volt (North American) circuit.
    Connect two 1000-watt HIDs to a 15 ampere 240-volt (European) circuit.
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    The ground wire is the third wire with the big round prong. The ground runs through the ballast all the way to the hood. High intensity discharge systems must have a ground that runs a continual path from the socket through the ballast to the main fuse box, then to the house ground.
    GFI: Ground Fault Interrupt outlets are required anywhere water is used in a home or business. Install GFI outlets in grow rooms to provide an instant, safe electrical shut-off when necessary.
    Hertz: Irregular fluctuations or cycles in electricity within a conductor (wire). In the United States, electricity runs at 60 hertz (Hz), or cycles, per second.
    Ohm’s Power Law: A law that expresses the strength of an electric current: volts × amperes = watts.
    Short Circuit: A short or unintentional circuit formed when conductors (wires) cross. A short circuit will normally blow fuses and turn off breaker switches.
    Volts: Electricity is under pressure or electrical potential. This pressure is measured in volts. Most home wiring is under the pressure of approximately 120 or 240 volts.
    Watts: are a measure of work. Watts measure the amount of electricity flowing in a wire. When amperes, (units of electricity per second) are multiplied by volts (pressure), we get watts. 1000 watts = 1 kilowatt.
    A halide lamp that draws about 9.2 amperes × 120 volts = 1104 watts. Remember Ohm’s Power Law: amps × watts = volts. This is strange; the answer was supposed to be 1000 watts. What is wrong? The electricity flows through the ballast, which uses energy to run. The energy drawn by the ballast must amount to 104 watts.

    Watt-hours: measure the amount of watts that are used during an hour. One watt-hour is equal to one watt used for one hour. A kilowatt-hour (kWh) is 1000 watt-hours. A 1000-watt HID will use roughly one kilowatt per hour, and the ballast will use about 100 watts. Electrical bills are charged out in kWh.
    Electrical wire comes in many thicknesses (gauges) indicated by number. Higher numbers indicate smaller wire and lower numbers indicate larger wire. Most household circuits are connected with 14-gauge wire. Wire thickness is important for two reasons–ampacity and voltage drop. Ampacity is the amount of amperes a wire is able to carry safely. Electricity flowing through wire creates heat. The more amps flowing, the more heat created. Heat is wasted power. Avoid wasting power by using the proper thickness of well-insulated wire (14-gauge for 120-volt applications and 18-gauge for 240-volts) with a grounded wire connection.
    Using too small of a wire forces too much power (amperes) through the wire, which causes voltage drop. Voltage (pressure) is lost in the wire. For example: by forcing an 18-gauge wire to carry 9.2 amperes at 120 volts, it would not only heat up, maybe even blowing fuses, but the voltage at the outlet would be 120 volts, while the voltage ten feet away could be as low as 108. This is a loss of 12 volts that you are paying for. The ballast and lamp run less efficiently with fewer volts. The further the electricity travels, the more heat that is generated and the more voltage drops.
    Compact fluorescent lamp box shows 65 actual watts. That is comparable to a 500-watt incandescent.

Each of the 20-inch (50-cm) bulbs uses 55 watts of electricity.

A horizontal reflector is not as efficient as vertical operation with no reflector with this bulb.

The ballast is attached to the lamp in this compact fluorescent.

CF lamps produce plenty of light of the proper spectrum to grow and flower a decent crop.

The inside of an electronic CFL ballast is compact and creates very little heat.

The light spectrum of an incandescent lamp. It will grow plants but is best suited to generating heat.

Light spectrum of tungsten halogen lamp. The red end of the spectrum is high but they are very inefficient.

Tungsten halogen lamps are a poor choice to grow cannabis.
    A lamp designed to work at 120 volts that only receives 108 volts (90 percent of the power it was intended to operate at), would produce only 70 percent of the normal light. Use at least 14-gauge wire for any extension cords, and if the cord is to carry power over 60 feet, use 12-gauge wire.
     
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When wiring a plug-in or socket:
The hot wire attaches to the brass or gold screw.
The common wire attaches to the