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Old 08-08-2008, 09:00 PM   #1
finaddictfred
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Electrical help please


I'm building my hood and need to know if this is the right way to go.
going to run 4 - 54w T5'2. 2 per ballast. Ballasts are going to be Workhorse 5's from Fulham. I read that I will need shunted T5 sockets for these bulbs and ballasts..is this correct? Also..Where do I connect a ground wire to..would I run a ground from the ballast to an outlet or could I run 3 wire and use the ground off that to ground both ballasts? This has me slightly confused. And will a 1200 mA AC adapter work for powering two fans that will be rated below the 1200mA rating?
The adaptor says:
AC Adaptor
Class 2 Power Units
Input: 120 VAC 60 HZ 32W
Output: 12 VDC 1200mA
Thanks,
Fred
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Old 08-08-2008, 09:11 PM   #2
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Hey Fred. Not sure what a shunted endcap is, but I used the ones sold at reefgeek. I imagine they'd work fine, as you just stick the wire in the end cap.

So grounding, do you have the ballasts yet? I used icecap on my setup, and they were wired for a grounded plug (3 wire). Check to see what your ballasts say. Also, you'll want to ground the reflectors, as even though they clip to the insulated bulbs, the bulbs will induce an electrical potential into them. This is not inherently dangerous, but the way mine were setup, I would often brush my arm against the reflector while feeding the fish (with my hand in the water), and I would notice a distinct buzz. Again, not going to electrocute you, but a bit uncomfortable. I just tied into the same ground wire coming out of the ballast and used some alligator clips to clip onto the ballasts, as this makes it real easy to take them out and clean (as opposed to unbolting or clipping some wire).

Finally, the AC/DC converters should work fine as long as the fans are indeed rated at under the 1.2A. After you wire it up, just test it for a little while. Not sure how it would fail if you over-run the converter, but I imagine over heating would be the prime issue, so run it for an hour or so before you install it to see how it works out.
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Old 08-08-2008, 09:15 PM   #3
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Groudning link, start looking around post 336. Icecap gave me some really good feedback on the fix.
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