hikmet, Im sorry I did not notice your questions, but I really had no desire to return to this thread. I thought I remember adding that one "remarkably honest" gardening site to my bookmarks, but I searched both home and at work and did not find the site. I have little desire to visit commercial grow sites. I get most all of my information by visiting and searching horticultural/agricultural institutions for plant and light information. I find reading retail hype makes me depressed and a bit angry. As for my collections of data it is loosely organized (if at all) and most of my collected PDFs have uninformative names like "p-5947.pdf", which does not tell you what is inside the file(that one is a Philips 250/400w Retro-White CMH brochure). I have wanted to organize them, but it would require a LOT of my time. At least I have read most all of them. I also get a lot of my info by searching for manufacturers technical data, which they almost always have available on their sites if they are reputable. Lucky for me, I also have made friends with various industry tech folks, so I can usually get better, in-depth explanations when I need them. I often try to qualify the integrity my information by naming my source(s), but as you may have seen, some people confuse that with name dropping. I do it to assure you my information is more than a "snake-oil" sales pitch. (I get e-mails from a librarian friend who footnotes EVERTHING she sends me.) I highly recommend learning to use Google (or equivalent search tool) to locate and narrow your search to find information. It is out there. I will try and write good, honest advice when I have more time. Rokal, I hope you found your bulb by now. Open-rated pulse-start lamps are now manufactured by most ALL of the major light manufacturers. Philips identifies theirs by the terms "Protected" or "O-Rated". And you should know this before ANY of the major lighting manufacturers (Philips, GE, Venture, Sylvania, etc) come out with a new variation of a lamp which requires a ballast, they ALWAYS have an arrangement with a major ballast manufacturer who will begin providing the necessary product to accompany the bulb. To not plan otherwise would be an enormously stupid act for a global company. And they will usually name the collaborating ballast manufacturer(s) in a press release well before their lamp hits the market. To think a major manufacturer might be waiting around for some little-known, small company to decide to develop the support ballast for their investment would truly imply a lack of knowledge of the industry. I think I will soon write an explanation of why an HID in a horizontal position has less output (and is more fragile). When I do, I will explain how to best position a horizontal bulb, and explain exactly what is going on inside! And why polycrystalline aluminate (ceramic tube) is an improvement over silicon dioxide (quartz tube). Also, a ground-fault circuit interrupt (GFCI) device is a great safety innovation, now being required, by code, in home and industrial locations. Basically, it detects any small difference in current flow between the HOT and the NEUTRAL terminals of an outlet, and shuts off immediately if a difference exists. The GFCI device will do this well before a harmful dose of juice can impact a person. If there is any leakage to ground it will trip. Zink

after seeing weed's post I looked around and it does seem to be around 800. Obviously they will all be different depending on size and model. I can find out for sure I bet if I go read the panel inside my furnace where it probably says...I have a 4-ton a/c so I guess my blower is on the bigger usage side. The problem is accounting for starting watts which can be around 2000w. The blower will be turning on and off and we won't be able to control when that is happening, so we'd have to account for the whole starting wattage the entire time it's hooked up. That's how it seems to me anyway. That would really cut into what else could be run off a generator in the 3500-5500 which is what I was looking at for a portable. For my purposes I will stick with space heaters and fireplace. I can more easily control the space heater even though it is high watt usage. I can simply shut off some other things until we get more comfortable. I'm not expecting total comfort, just to not be an icicle. Those of us with newer units also need to be more careful what we hook up to them. Thanks for all the input. I hope others find it useful.

Glad to hear it - that was a drastic idea and not really a solution. Since you're putting a new circuit in (here in BC I don't think you're allowed to use a 15a circuit for power, it's only allowed for lighting) I'd suggest you put the printer on the 20a and keep the computer on the 15. I too wonder about the accuracy of the printer's draw but at the same time suggest you do consider replacing it, if you can verify that excessive draw. The 80% you were mentioning is more a thing of good housekeeping - for safety's sake, a circuit should always be de-rated as it were - just as with electronic components like capacitors, they're usually rated far above the operating voltage you should actually use. For example, I got a collection of capacitors from a surplus store very cheap because they were odd values - one is rated at 100,000 microfarads which is huge but rated only at 15 volts dc - I couldn't use it say, in a car as a noise suppressor in my stereo, as car alternators can put out as much as 13.8 to 14 volts, which would be too close to its peak rated voltage....its absolute limit would probably be 12 volts, but in practice, it'd be better for 6 or 8 volts. The other thing to note in the life of circuit breakers is they do not have an indefinite life, I've heard talk they should be replaced as soon as they've been tripped a few times, since they can start to act up like yours is, and not trip when they should....also, if you're running them at or above their peak, the likelihood of them failing to trip is increased. A really safety-conscious person probably ought to replace ALL their breakers every few years, although I doubt many do.

So, for the folks who are running their central AC on a small generator, there are some things to consider so you don’t damage your ac. Just because it’s working doesn’t mean it’s not harming your central ac. 1st you need to have a quick reading voltage meter your typical cheapie can’t read ms long voltage changes. What your looking for is when your ac starts what is the instantaneous voltage drop. If your seeing under 208V when starting your ac, your accelerating wear on your motor windings on the compressor. Your compressor takes a certain amount of wattage which varies depending on temperature. If your ac says 90lra at 208v you need 18,720 starting watts, to start the ac without a voltage drop. If your generator can’t supply the needed power, you’ll slow the engine down and bog the generator causing its output voltage to drop, and say it’s outputting only 185v starting the ac. That means your ac is now drawing 18720/185=101 amps, and for a longer period of time. at low voltage the ac will take longer to start, heating the motor winding on your ac significantly more, once the insulation degrade or the wiring melts in the ac your compressor is done, So it’s not that it can’t be done, but it will wear your compressor a lot more quickly. Also if your ac doesnt sound the same while running it’s because the motor is vibrating more due to a highly distorted ac wave form or high THD from the generator. This extra vibration will wear the compressor more quickly and if bad enough destroy the motor. So some things to keep in mind when running a central ac on a generator. something highly recommended for small generators is leave the ac running all the time to reduce starts which damage the motors and or install a soft start kit to reduce LRA. If the ac is noisy on generator power get a different generator with a low thd, make sure it’s grounded properly if needed and consider upgrading your ac run capacitor to a 440v. Real bottom line, a cheap generator can run a very expensive ac. But if it kills your ac you didn’t really save money by buying a cheap generator.