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05-21-2008, 10:06 PM #1OPSenior Member
Cheap and Easy Thermostat
You don??t have to spend $200 or $300 for a fancy name brand ??atmospheric controller? to regulate the temperature of your grow area. I rigged up a simple thermostat and heat lamp to keep my seeds warm during germination, which comes on if temperatures drop to 71. It stays on until 81, but just too make sure things don??t get too hot too fast, it has a duty cycle of 3 minutes on and 12 off. Additionally if temperatures reach 83, an exhaust system with a big-ass, room clearing fan comes on, and stays on unless temps drop to 76.
Lux makes a $10 heating thermostat and a $10 cooling thermostat. If you do this, be careful you don??t get a thermostat for controlling 24 volt systems. Both those, and 110 volt are common (We??re talking United States here.) For this project, I only needed a heating thermostat, but one could easily employ the same techniques to control a swamp cooler or whatever. You could also have the room??s exhaust controlled by one thermostat, then when the room gets cool enough to shut off the exhaust, have another one turn on CO2. Or you can just shell out the $250 for the Green Air CT-DH-3 (scroll down a bit), and be able to exhaust according to humidity as well.
Tools needed:
- Standard slotted screwdriver
- Knife or wire stripper
Mounting the unit:
I won??t go into great detail here, and tools and supplies for this I??ll leave up to you. I nearly put it on the wall with a couple of Velcro strips, but changed my mind and drilled a couple holes in the back of the electric box, and screwed it. I also thought about attaching a hook on the top, and making it more portable. You might want to move it up or down, depending on where your fan or the canopy is.
Photo 1 (Materials, most of em anyway):
Here??s what I used. An extension cord cut in two, a thermostat, and a standard switch or outlet electrical box. I got everything except the tape (see below) at BiMart, a cheaper version of Walmart, believe it or not. Also used but not shown in photo 1 are 2 additional wire nuts (the thermostat comes with 2, you??ll need 4), a 5 inch length of wire, and Stretch & Seal silicon tape. IMO this is much better than standard electricians tape. The tape is optional, but the books recommend taping up your wire nut connections, just to be safe, and so do I.
Photo 2:
A slightly blurry photo of the thermostat in it??s package. Their website is luxproducts.com. They have timers and some other stuff too.
Photo 3 (wiring, part 1):
Here it is with the wire nuts on. Be sure to run the wires through the back of the box before attaching them to the thermostat. Keep in mind the orientation of the unit at this point. If you are screwing the thing to the wall, it??s easier to drill holes in the box first. There are 2 knock-out holes on top and 2 on the bottom of the back of the box. I ran the male plug-in part of the cord into the top of the box, and the female out the bottom, since the male part will go out the top of my closet when I??m done remodeling, and I like my fans down low, blowing upward.
Photo 4 (wiring, part 2):
Here??s the wiring more close up. A single pole thermostat should come with three connections; ground, line, and load. On the Lux, the black wire is load, and the red wire is line. Be sure to check these wires, mine were loose. For ground, you screw a wire to the metal frame. Connect the white (neutral) wires from the two ends of the cord together. Connect the green (ground) wires together as well, along with another short wire, which is connected to the ground on the thermostat. Connecting several wires together, then connecting them to the unit with one wire is called a pigtail connection, and is required according to code.
Connect the black (hot) wire from the male portion of the cord to the ??line? connection, or in the case of the Lux, the ??line? wire. Connect the black wire from the female part of the cord to the ??load? connection.
Gently tug on each wire to make sure it is secure in the wire nut. If not, keep trying until it is, or try a different size nut. You don??t want these coming loose as you cram them into the box. And again, you really should wrap the connections in tape.
Photo 5 (wiring, part 3):
Wiring schematic. Thank you Photoshop.Opie Yutts Reviewed by Opie Yutts on . Cheap and Easy Thermostat You don??t have to spend $200 or $300 for a fancy name brand ??atmospheric controller? to regulate the temperature of your grow area. I rigged up a simple thermostat and heat lamp to keep my seeds warm during germination, which comes on if temperatures drop to 71. It stays on until 81, but just too make sure things don??t get too hot too fast, it has a duty cycle of 3 minutes on and 12 off. Additionally if temperatures reach 83, an exhaust system with a big-ass, room clearing fan comes on, Rating: 5
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