oh this is bad....

[dbkick]

what im saying is I don't get any issues on my electronics.

I used to live in a condo (ranch style, 4 to a building). I ran 3x Apollo 600w ballasts and NEVER any issues with my electronics or my neighbors. ALL had comcrap.


so please don't put my success with Apollo as all junk/garbage. maybe it was YOU who had faulty equipment and was causing an issue for others. this is NOT my case.

thank you very much. this message was brought to you by DemonTrich. take it as you like, or piss off. either way, I don't care. I LOVE my Apollo ballasts and see NO reason to spend 2x the price for other ballasts that HAVE the same Rf issues. see avatar for further instructions if you don't like what I say.

Anyone who buys the cheapest ballast they can find probably buys the cheapest lamps too.
They don't consider quality of the light produced.
If you don't like what I say see avatar.

 

[Gquebed]

Def not, if u can't get rid of rfi with all the other suggestions in this thread. Build a fairday cage. It's simply a 2x4 frame around your ballast, then get some copper wire (u can use copper mesh, just doesn't work as well) and make a grid around the frame. Ballast to be under the wire. The tighter your squares on your grid, the better it does at preventing rfi. You the must ground that frame to a ground separate from your homes ground(which is usually shared ground for your cable line).

Nanolux also sells rfi fairday clamps that go on both sides of your ballast, they work well if your only have a cpl ballast.

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to when you can just build a filter. Its in the links inposted above

 

[Carolina Dream'n]

Sounds like a lot of trouble to go to when you can just build a filter. Its in the links inposted above

I am building a filter just a different kind. All a fairday cage does is catch rf and send it to a ground. It's very simple and took me about 3 hours and $800 to shield 24 ballast.

 

[DemonTrich]

what if we put a ground from the ballast metal case to an earth ground (copper water pipe, ect)? would that help at all?

 

[Carolina Dream'n]

what if we put a ground from the ballast metal case to an earth ground (copper water pipe, ect)? would that help at all?

Yes. As long as your ground is not shared by your cable or power line. That will work fine.

 

[Midwest Weedist]

Yes. As long as your ground is not shared by your cable or power line. That will work fine.

Could you run a ground wire in a similar manner to how a lightning rod is grounded (conductive metal pole sunk 10+ feet into the earth then wired to the lightning rod, or in this case your ballast(s))?

 

[Carolina Dream'n]

Could you run a ground wire in a similar manner to how a lightning rod is grounded (conductive metal pole sunk 10+ feet into the earth then wired to the lightning rod, or in this case your ballast(s))?

I know nothing about lightning rods. A ground is normally just a metal pole stuck into the ground. I'm sure there are some metals not supposed to be used.

I used the same copper wire I used for fairday cage, drove a rebar a cpl feet into the ground, and connected the wire to the rebar. All this is under a crawl space.

 

[domino7]

About a year ago, I went through the same thing. Of course, they never found anything when I let them in, because I had cleaned everything up. They actually shut my cable off at the pole to force me to make a service call. After researching the issue, I just went back to magnetic ballasts, and haven't had a problem since.

 

[Gquebed]

I am building a filter just a different kind. All a fairday cage does is catch rf and send it to a ground. It's very simple and took me about 3 hours and $800 to shield 24 ballast.

Ahhh... that would work better for multiple ballasts than whats i the link

 

[WeedFreak78]

I skimmed through this. Just went through the interference thing messing up the cable. Had a digi ballast hanging from rafters with the main cable line running 4-6" above it, cable was all snowy..moved the line over 2 rafter bays, cable was back to normal. If you tune an AM radio into a white area - no signal coming in- and use the antenna as a probe/wand, you can detect RFI.

 

[SPLFreak808]

Wifi r

I skimmed through this. Just went through the interference thing messing up the cable. Had a digi ballast hanging from rafters with the main cable line running 4-6" above it, cable was all snowy..moved the line over 2 rafter bays, cable was back to normal. If you tune an AM radio into a white area - no signal coming in- and use the antenna as a probe/wand, you can detect RFI.

Wifi router and cdma phones also! My lincoln k30 mig straight warps all radio waves within 30 feet!

 

[mc130p]

i wonder about the health effects of living near such radiation sources for long periods of time.....

 

[SPLFreak808]

i wonder about the health effects of living near such radiation sources for long periods of time.....

Depending on the frequency and output, it can be potentially fatal.

 

[lejton]

ok so today im making food with my brother and this cable guy knocks on my door and tells me something in my house is making peoples cable/internet go crazy, so he asks if he can come in and try to look at the wires. Well just so happens that my little grow tent is in the same room as my router. so i unplug the light and then he tells me that whatever i did it worked. now i have a cheap Apollo digital ballast so i know that is the problem. now im scared to plug my light in and to make things worst im in the 4th week of flower. i did move my tent to a diffrent room maybe that would help? if you guys have any ways that you know work please let me know them!

Bear with me, english is not my native language, but I think It's happening because ballast contains series of capacitors needed to make the voltage jump to start the light, and when it's on, it can make the circuit capacitive, causing voltage to "be late" after current flows causing shift in voltage:current flow ratio, which can have negative impact on the neighbourhood network and cause instability, maybe thats why he checked you. I think the solution would be to find an inductive element (coils made with copper wire) to nullify the jumpstart signal that the capacitive circuit makes.
I might be wrong though haha.

 

[dbkick]

Bear with me, english is not my native language, but I think It's happening because ballast contains series of capacitors needed to make the voltage jump to start the light, and when it's on, it can make the circuit capacitive, causing voltage to "be late" after current flows causing shift in voltage:current flow ratio, which can have negative impact on the neighbourhood network and cause instability, maybe thats why he checked you. I think the solution would be to find an inductive element (coils made with copper wire) to nullify the jumpstart signal that the capacitive circuit makes.
I might be wrong though haha.

So you're saying its only the ignition that interferes?
It's because digital ballasts run at 70-100+khz and there will be leakage of rf signals if not shielded 100 percent.
That includes cordset. Ignition is very short ,

 

[dbkick]

The new commercial phantom DE comes with a w arning .......

 

[dbkick]

Although at 3200 volts for ignition that probably throws off some rfi too but it's brief.

 

[grandvapor]

This thread has been superbly entertaining, yet informative!