Lighting – Light socket adapters – are they safe

light-fixturelightingsafety

I'm in the process of building a little grow cupboard for herbs and vegetables and want to make a row of 24-30W CFL's (compact flourecent lights) and have found these plug adapters:

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=281689827872

Are these safe to plug 5 of these into a power board that has a safety switch?

If not, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? I want to use multiple lower wattage bulbs instead of a few high output bulbs.

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

It's all about the watts, dude!

The safety concern surrounding the use of adapters, power boards, and the like is as you mentioned: wattage.

Power strip (board) safety 101:

  1. Add up the wattage of all loads (in your case, CFLs) plugged into the power strip.
  2. Look at the power strip for a wattage rating, and take four-fifths (or 80%) of it as a derating factor to prevent the safety switch (circuit breaker) from nuisance tripping.
  3. Compare that four-fifths-of-the-rating number with the total wattage of your loads; if it's less than that, you're good to go! If it's greater than that, you need to use more than one power strip/tap/board plugged into different outlets, or even multiple circuits coming from the panel.

Using a 1200W (240V 5A or 120V 10A) power strip/board and your example load of 5 30W CFLs:

  1. The total load is 5*30W = 150W
  2. The power board is rated for 1200W -- but we don't want to push it that far; the 80% is a derating factor as fuses and circuit breakers aren't exactly fans of operating at their rating continuously. So, 80% of 1200W is 960W.
  3. Since 960W (the amount of power the board should be handling on a continuous basis) is well over 150W, you are fine.
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