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I've been growing 3 plants for a few months, when I switched the lights over to 12/12 i got one male and two females. everything was going great for the first week, then over the past 4-5 days the circuit breaker for the grow room has been tripping at midnight( the time the timer stops) except last night, it ran until 7( one hour away from lights out). The circuit breaker is rated to 20 amps at 120v and I am using a 400w hps(4 amps), a 100w hps(1 amp), 2 Stanley blower fans(.85amps a piece), 2 humidifiers( no more than 1 amp total), a water pump( no more than 1 amp), and 2 computer fans(basically nothing). That adds up to no more than 10 amps, the only other appliance in the room is a hot water heater, but it is natural gas. I thought it might have something to do with the timer until last night.
Any suggestions are appreciated. It is creating a problem because it is causing one of my girls to stretch, she is about 8 inches taller than the other now, and they were at the same height until the lights started cutting off after 4 hours.
Well, first things first, I would replace the timer with a heavy duty mechanical timer and see if that fixes the problem. Next I would try to get everything except the 400w hps off of the circuit, use a couple long extension cords and see if the problem is an overload of some sort. If you still haven't found the error, buy a new breaker from HD or Lowes and replace the 20A breaker in the box with the new 20A breaker you bought. Good luck.
I have tried only running the 2 fans and the 400w hps, this didn't seem to have any effect, I even unplugged everything else to eliminate any phantom power usage. The timer is supposed to be heavy duty and it is mechanical, but I think thats where my problem is since i have been running all of this stuff for 24/7 ( with a 6 hour break for my equipment once a week) with no problems. Thanks for the advice, if the timer doesn't fix it, I guess I'll have to replace the breaker it may have a problem with it.