My power bar melt
 

So my tank light suddenly shut down and I discovered this

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_...2B%284%29.jpeg

Well my fault to have 3 MH + AC attached to it. But I learned my lesson and I would like to warn everyone to replace their cheap plastic powerbar to avoid burning your house down.

Now, where do i buy metal power bar?

Thanks

Canadian tire

Would a GFCI help in this case?

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ma...l#.VFLemK0QGrc

Gfci never hurts IMO

That is scary. Here is my powerbar that melted Attachment 13381

Most power bars are rated for 15A.

It's definitely a good idea to look at your ballasts to see how much each draws before plugging them all into the power bar. :biggrin:

Yes, GFCI never hurts (in most cases) but wouldn't have helped in this situation (or at least not until the internals melted so much that they arced, and even then it's not reliable). A house fire is more imminent at this point.
Those home-use powerbars can't handle MHs
The internals aren't built to handle much more than 5A per outlet (IMHO). Take one apart and you'll see what I mean.
Most of those bars are only rated for 13A, which is 1560 watts @ 100%
Take off a ceiling of 20% (for draw and such) and you're down to less than 1250 watts. And that's for the whole powerbar.
Now add up what each item you're plugging into it and see what you get.
Nevermind the fact that, spread out over the bar, each outlet can now only handle just over 300 watts (relatively speaking), and you'll get a meltdown if something is drawing more than 300 watts - in theory :wink:

This is the reason I have 2 different 15amp circuits serving my 90 G tank and sump.
Another good reason to not use MH lights unless you can put them on there own circuit if possible.

The picture tells us the heat source was clearly building up between the plug and the outlet. This implies the cause most likely is bad contact between them or there was current short cut by salt building right there.