young padawon in the art of growing

I have been looking for a switchable ballast. I have found several, some economically priced. Do the more expensive ones work better? Is there really that much of a difference?

 

switchable ballast, good idea. since you can very your lamps and save money in the long run.. and you have a balllats thats 1000W yet switchable to 400W you change you bulb use less power,,, good when you need vegitation. say grow under the 400 in MH/ vegitivily plants dont need lots of light... but when it comes to budding and producing THC buds a HPS lamp is needed. install the 900whps interchangable bulb into the 1000w mh interchangable ballast. and away you go....
Yet only high end manufactures make these ballast and commercial application for the light are more known than that for agriculture.. but that my opinion. not fact.. happy funny farming to you...

 

thanks,, im tryin to get it together and you are really being a big help,once again thankx !!!!

 

its ok, I know all this shit but i still dont have it all together...lol...

 

Wont a 1000w raise the temp in the chamber dramatically. The chamber is 7ft by 4ft?

 

it will get hot but only up top. a nice box fan will cool down temps enough.. you need heavy wind indoors to strengthen plant stalk but not if your cloning..
a good cloning method for me is to have it hot and moist lots of MH light. plants will tend to Vine and cloning is easier with soft stalks..tropical strains tend to do this.
arrid dry strains will also but you wouldnt want to grow them much in that condition..

 

oops,,had my dimensions wrong,, they are 3'x4'x7',,will the box fan still work,, or should I come up with a better ventilation system for this?

 

When you said switchable I thought you were referring to the type of bulb (HPS/MH). Digital ballasts do just that. For a 3x4 area ~ 400 - 600 watts would be the size. A 1K watter during summer could bring your temps to the 90'F+ range. Look for a cool tube and an extractor fan if you get the big boy.

 

An important aspect to note from the above results is that the digital ballasts that run on low power also emit less light. While this may help out with the power bill, it is disastrous for your plants. The actual efficiency of some of these ballasts is worse than the old coil ballasts.
Another observation was that the Galaxy ballast seems to have a problem firing a new bulb for the first time. After firing a new bulb for two minutes the ballast shuts down and stops firing the bulb. Once the ballast has fired the bulb for the first time, however, it is able to fire the bulb the second time and maintain the power to the bulb. The Galaxy was also the least efficient out of all the ballasts in converting electrical power into light; even the 1000w coil ballast was more efficient!
The 750w Lumatek ballast produced more light than 1000w Evolution; this was true even though the Lumatek ballast was powered by 220v and not the required 240v. We also found that the light intensity on the Evolution decreased further after 30 minutes of operation.

It should be noted that Hortilux bulbs, whilehaving a good spectrum, have a relatively low lumen output. Had we used a standard bulb (such as a Philips or Sylvania) the output ratings undoubtedly would have been higher.
The last point we would like to make here is the fact that after 2-3 years of operation (sometimes less), coil ballasts begin to degrade in performance and generate even less light than when they were new; digital ballasts do not experience this decrease in performance.

 

You forgot to paste this part


NOTE: The information in this article is now out of date. BGH highly recommends not using this information to base your decision on when choosing a new digital ballast. The most notable change is that the Galaxy ballasts have been redesigned. They are now almost identical to the Lumatek, but they are dual-voltage (120V/240V) and work with every lamp that BGH carries.

I bookmarked BGHydro long ago. Great site.

 

Thank you.. because I couldnt find all the shit i was look for damn it.. Im balled out tired. and when its my day off I like to keep staying awake and baked.. lol.. I was out flipping dirt for my corn and my arms are tired also...

 

I appreciate the advice,, I finally found a 600w luma switchabe, and a cooltube priced pretty good,, the only prob with that is I am hvng diff finding a MH bulb @ 600 most are either 400 or 1k.whats the deal with conversion MH bulbs,, I have always heard they are not as good as the regular MH bulbs?????

 

Once again thanks all for the advice,, ya'll are a really big help!!!

 

no prob, getting a digital newer ballast is the way to go. But since I already have 1/2 dozen or more "RELIC" hids, theres no need for me to go get one, but if lamps(bulbs) for traditional wound ballast are outdated 50 years from now Ill worry about getting a digital.
"digital ballasts do not experience this decrease in performance".
^
thanks bill for claifying that...