My lil project...

[johnnyballbag]

Here's a controller i built. I'll try and break down how it's designed and how it works. I wanted a controller that would control both my lights, 2 1000 watt hps in air cooled hoods. I run my lights on 240V, and got tired of looking for a timer that could handle the load without fusing, and one that could easily handle a LOT of lights if i wanted to expand it. It's really simple. You could run 20,000 watts off of a cheap plug in appliance time. Well, you could "trigger" that much power. I bought two surface mount timers, both identical. They're 120V timers. What i did was run the signal from one timer to 2 relays, so i could have a 120V timer but run my lights on 240V. The timer is just a trigger, it controls 2 super beefy industrial relays, one relay for each light. The other timer controls the air cooling fan. I wanted to have the fan run a little while after the lights turned out, to cool the bulbs. A lot of hoods nowadays have aluminum inserts, and if overheated they'll warp and throw out a fucked up light pattern. That's why a lot of air cooled hoods shouldn't be ran if you're not air cooling them. So my fan starts before the lights come on, a little bit of safe redundancy. And it stays on after the lights turn off for a little while. I wired a selector switch to each relay, so i could turn each light on and off individually and manually. I also mounted an e-stop or "emergency shut down" button, right by my door when you enter the room. It turns off the lights and the air cooling fan, all the noisiest and most noticable items...Kinda like an "oh shit button!" Had a buddy hook up some custom engravings. Be sure to get a close look at the e-stop button. Around here people call good shit "kill" so i always said mine was a lil better, so i called it "death" jokingly. Hence "death production system shut down." I was ripped when i thought of it and still kinda laugh when i see it. I also mounted a speed pot for the air cooling fan, a speed controller. I use a 1000 cfm CanFan MAX, so sometimes i need all that power, and in the cooler months i slow it down to an almost crawl. Having a fan that's way bigger than you need is good because with a fan speed controller you can turn it down to where you need it. Slower rpms equal a quieter operating fan. Anyways, i'm ripped and rambling and bouncing around from thought to thought...so i'll shut up and get up the pics. Hope you enjoy!

[johnnyballbag]

Damn it i always have trouble loading pics into the thread. We'll see what happens...

[johnnyballbag]

Forgot to mention..the bottom box contains all the power, and the top box is just 120V control. The power box has 3 breakers; 1 for the 120V control and to power the fan, and 2 breakers for the lights, one for each light. All of my lighting is ran through this, my lights and my fan. I have the controller wired on it's own two circuits off of my main panel in my house. You'll see 2 cords coming up from the bottom into the bottom box, thats the 240V supply for the lighting, and the 120V for all the control and to power the fan. I've built all kinds of controllers for people, biggest i've designed and built was for an 18k show. Thanks for lookin, and feel free to ask any questions if you have any.

[johnnyballbag]

Anyone else have any gadgetry they wanna throw up? Let's see whats cookin...

[LostCoaster]

HOLY SMOKES DUDE that is awesome. Good to know you johnny stick around I will for sure need some tips on electrical.

If your product is the "death" right now then pretty soon you'll be having the global thermonuclear holocaust buds with those new strains!

I also have a 10" can fan Max, those are great fans. So quiet, so light. . definitely makes inline fans obsolete.

[johnnyballbag]

^ Thanks man, i love designing and building stuff. My next project is going to be a 2 way pH doser. Not meaning that it'll dose up and down (which i could very easily make it modular to do so). Every pH doser/controller i've ever seen seems to only be designed to keep the pH at the set level, all the time. I want mine to dose down to say 5.5, then allow the res to drift up a few tenths before dosing back down. If your res is health and everything is in check, the pH should only rise, thus making a doser that doses up and down almost retarded. I would like to think anyone fucking around with a setup that hightech would have their res management down...Once i design that, i'll do aero. But just one controller for that setup, or a section of a "master" controller...
And yeah i'm loving the can fan, only thing i can see getting above that is a Fantech, pushes like i wanna say 3 or 4 thousand cfm.

[johnnyballbag]

If your product is the "death" right now then pretty soon you'll be having the global thermonuclear holocaust buds with those new strains!

Yeah thanks again bud! I'm thinking it'll be showin up friday. I'll try and get some pics once i get them stuffed into the cloner. Guess i'm gonna have to have a new tag made for my emergency shut-down button, eh? :p