Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Calling all electricians...Electronic Ballasts + GFCI = snap!

outsiders71 · April 30, 2010

I've been growing my seedlings for the last few years with some overdriven GE T8 electronic ballasts. Originally the ballasts were meant to light four bulbs, I overdrive 2. Anyways after I moved last year to my new home, I've setup my grow shelf and lights in the basement. I'm stuck with using a GFCI outlet which last year gave me problems with my timer. Every time the timer turned the lights on the GFCI would shut off the outlet. I didn't know much about GFCI and figured maybe timers weren't compatible with them. So last year I manually turned the lights on and off.

Fast forward to this year, I've increased the amount of shoplights from 4 to 8. I got four shelves so 2 per shelf. The GFCI goes off all the time at random times. It could go off within 20 minutes, a few hours, or not at all. Lately its been going off within an hour or two.

So I busted out my multimeter and started checking the continuity of all the bulbs. They all checked out fine. I've checked and out of OCD rewired some of the fixtures. All the grounds have continuity. I even have a 14 gauge wire attached to my metal rack that I have hooked up to the 3 prong that goes into the wall to ground the rack itself. I did some searches online and it appears this is not an isolated incident. I was "daisy chaining" two power strips together and thought maybe that had something to do with it. So I bought a nice power strip with a built in circuit breaker and 8 grounded outlets. Same results.

I'm running out of ideas and am becoming frustrated. If I plug these shoplights into the GFCI receptacle individually they will not throw it off. It's when they are all plugged in the problem occurs. So based on that and the continuity checks I'd have to say my wiring is correct and safe. What are my options then? There's only two outlets in my basement (gj to whoever built this house) and the other is a non-gfci outlet but is far away. I assume running a grounded extension cord would not be a good idea?

The other option is to install a new circuit breaker, and outlet, since the fuse box is right next to the grow shelf. However I don't have any experience doing this and would prefer to not take any risks if not necessary.

All I can do right now is run some of them all night and swap them out for the others during the day. I'm out of ideas...

April 30, 2010	#1
outsiders71 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Ohio Posts: 150	Calling all electricians...Electronic Ballasts + GFCI = snap! I've been growing my seedlings for the last few years with some overdriven GE T8 electronic ballasts. Originally the ballasts were meant to light four bulbs, I overdrive 2. Anyways after I moved last year to my new home, I've setup my grow shelf and lights in the basement. I'm stuck with using a GFCI outlet which last year gave me problems with my timer. Every time the timer turned the lights on the GFCI would shut off the outlet. I didn't know much about GFCI and figured maybe timers weren't compatible with them. So last year I manually turned the lights on and off. Fast forward to this year, I've increased the amount of shoplights from 4 to 8. I got four shelves so 2 per shelf. The GFCI goes off all the time at random times. It could go off within 20 minutes, a few hours, or not at all. Lately its been going off within an hour or two. So I busted out my multimeter and started checking the continuity of all the bulbs. They all checked out fine. I've checked and out of OCD rewired some of the fixtures. All the grounds have continuity. I even have a 14 gauge wire attached to my metal rack that I have hooked up to the 3 prong that goes into the wall to ground the rack itself. I did some searches online and it appears this is not an isolated incident. I was "daisy chaining" two power strips together and thought maybe that had something to do with it. So I bought a nice power strip with a built in circuit breaker and 8 grounded outlets. Same results. I'm running out of ideas and am becoming frustrated. If I plug these shoplights into the GFCI receptacle individually they will not throw it off. It's when they are all plugged in the problem occurs. So based on that and the continuity checks I'd have to say my wiring is correct and safe. What are my options then? There's only two outlets in my basement (gj to whoever built this house) and the other is a non-gfci outlet but is far away. I assume running a grounded extension cord would not be a good idea? The other option is to install a new circuit breaker, and outlet, since the fuse box is right next to the grow shelf. However I don't have any experience doing this and would prefer to not take any risks if not necessary. All I can do right now is run some of them all night and swap them out for the others during the day. I'm out of ideas...