How many total amps is this??

[Steveydvee]

My 50 amp breaker at the bottom just tripped I’m trying to figure out why. Is there too many amps being pulled in the house? I don’t use that top Left 50 amp breaker.

the 50 amp is wired with 6/2 wire to a sub panel that pulls 8000 watts. It’s definitely oversized. The project called for 40 amps but I upgraded just to be safe.

 

[Wilko]

Hi from UK and I hope you are keeping well .
Pardon my basic question, but is the 8kW load run from a 120V circuit? 8kW at 120V would be 66A and that would likely trip a 50A after some time.

 

[Steveydvee]

Hi from UK and I hope you are keeping well .
Pardon my basic question, but is the 8kW load run from a 120V circuit? 8kW at 120V would be 66A and that would likely trip a 50A after some time.

No it is on a double pole.

so let me go into more detail. The 50 amps is running into what is called a Titan Control 8x light controller. It works similarly to what a sub panel would. That Titan controller is connected to 8 ballasts each powering 1000 watt horticulture lighting bulbs totalling to a max of 8000 watts. The controller has two separate 120v cords that are plugged into a wall timer so if you wanted to turn on 4 lights at this time and another 4 at a different time, you could. The timer will tell when the power is to be shut off and turned on by controlling a magnet inside the Titan controller. It’s been working fine the past 2 weeks as this is a fairly new setup I have built. Prior to this incident the one thing I did differently was I adjusted both timers to basically turn on at the exact same time almost down to the second. Before there was an offset of about 1 minute. When the ballast first turns on it takes a considerable amount of energy. So I am assuming this was my mistake. Maybe causing a surge of some sort

another one I would like to point out is that I wired the whole damn thing wrong but apparently it turned out to be okay? I’m not sure so let me hear your take on this. I wired the double pole as normal hot and hot. But I put the ground into the neutral bus. I think that could be the reason also. So I researched online and some were saying it was okay to wire neutrals and grounds together if some requirements were met.

When the breaker tripped I flipped it back to the on position it immediately tripped again shutting off my entire house electric supply and frying my 50 amp breaker. I had to go outside to turn the power back on.. I know I know. I made a bunch of mistakes. But all is well and no fire so that’s a plus. Good thing it was raining a lot today ?

any ideas what happened here?

 

[Wilko]

Hi - it’s always possible there’s a wiring fault, oops !
But if it was working ok till you changed the light timing to all come on at once then the inrush current you mentioned may well be the cause. Of the first trip.

I never connect Ground and Neutral, so I’m wondering why that’s been done? This would likely trip a ground fault device for example.