To run a dimmable ballast at 100% before real flowers?

[medicalMonster]

So 1000w
dimmable electronic ballast.
Digital
HPS
12/12

I am in early 3rd week and I was wondering is their a point in running 1000 watts right now or can i run 50% and when calyx and flowers really come in then go 1000w?

Or blast those (*&*($&$ 24/7 at 1000w?

Thanks in advance

 

[justugh]

So 1000w
dimmable electronic ballast.
Digital
HPS
12/12

I am in early 3rd week and I was wondering is their a point in running 1000 watts right now or can i run 50% and when calyx and flowers really come in then go 1000w?

Or blast those (*&*($&$ 24/7 at 1000w?

Thanks in advance

never run a ballast on anything other then 100% for the bulb or 110% for a boost on old bulbs

when u run them on less power u are damaging the bulb as they are not designed to be dim-able .....they want 100% power all the time to get to their Hum point .....if u decrease the power the bulb will always be trying to get to that point the light it emits is slightly off and your damaging the filament decreasing the over all run time u have on the bulb

 

[medicalMonster]

Thanks so much! I ran it for only a few hours :S. Its on 100% now.

Its INSANE how my girls reacted from an old shitty reflected 400w to a brand new aircooled 1000w.

 

[justugh]

Thanks so much! I ran it for only a few hours :S. Its on 100% now.

Its INSANE how my girls reacted from an old shitty reflected 400w to a brand new aircooled 1000w.

i know u should see 2 600w in a 4x4x6 tent ........shit is insane

good luck

 

[qwizoking]

ya. i run 100% from true leaves onwards. if you have bleaching, or the leaves start to thicken and have that look, ill back off slightly. but the idea is to push the plant to its limits. imo

as ugh mentioned, it throws the spectrum. not ideal.

what i use are multiple bulb ballasts or whatever. like the apollo purple reign. can run 400-1000 watt bulbs and has a boost feature for each bulb. so if yiur not trying to use that much light you still get proper spectrum and bulb life. personally i run hps start to finish and dimming pusges the spectrum more into the red.

 

[bryangtho]

I run 3x600 in my veg room on 6 pots because it summer here.
I am running the ballasts at 80% and they are growing so fast.
They been in the veg room for 18 days

 

[Alienwidow]

Running at anything but 100% is supposed to be harder on the bulbs....from what ive heard.

 

[kmog33]

It not only lessens the life of your bulb. They also don't put out the correct spectrum when they aren't burning at their rated wattage. If you dim your ballast you should get bulbs that are rated at what you're dimming to.


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[justugh]

It not only lessens the life of your bulb. They also don't put out the correct spectrum when they aren't burning at their rated wattage. If you dim your ballast you should get bulbs that are rated at what you're dimming to.


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see that is part of the problem
the dimmable are set for 100% 75% 50% ........if u get a 1000w that is 750w and 500w 600w is 450 watts and 300w .....see what i am saying no matter what dimmable u got the only way to run it and get full life from the bulb is 100% .......

there are something called Select a watt ......normally a digital ballast designed for just that ....run a 1000w 600w and a 400w at that power and doing a power boost for when u are over 10k hours to gain back lost lumens on the 1000w

i made the mistake of getting 2 600w dimable .......figured out my mistake now i share the info to help others avoid what i did

the best ballast i seen on the market is Solis Tek Matrix 1000w SE/DE
http://solis-tek.com/products/digital-ballasts/solistek-1000-750-600w-se-de-digital-ballast-120-240v.html

this is the only one i seen like this ......i love the remote feature and built in timer
heard galaxy did something along this lines too .....and they have a great track record as ballast

 

[kmog33]

see that is part of the problem
the dimmable are set for 100% 75% 50% ........if u get a 1000w that is 750w and 500w 600w is 450 watts and 300w .....see what i am saying no matter what dimmable u got the only way to run it and get full life from the bulb is 100% .......

there are something called Select a watt ......normally a digital ballast designed for just that ....run a 1000w 600w and a 400w at that power and doing a power boost for when u are over 10k hours to gain back lost lumens on the 1000w

i made the mistake of getting 2 600w dimable .......figured out my mistake now i share the info to help others avoid what i did

the best ballast i seen on the market is Solis Tek Matrix 1000w SE/DE
http://solis-tek.com/products/digital-ballasts/solistek-1000-750-600w-se-de-digital-ballast-120-240v.html

this is the only one i seen like this ......i love the remote feature and built in timer
heard galaxy did something along this lines too .....and they have a great track record as ballast

There are a few 1k digi ballasts that dim according to actual bulb size I believe. So 1k 600 400 250, my lunate just does 250 250+ 400 400+ and 600 600+. The + is the super lumens feature lumatek built in, never use it. But I still think you do better running bulbs closer to their rated wattage as far as spectral output. So running a 600 watt bulb at 500 watts is better than running a 1k bulb at 500 watts.

I also don't know exactly how the dimmers work, but I'm betting it's a current/amperage thing, so when you dim to half power of a 1k it probably isn't exactly 500 it's probably a range between like 480-550 watts.

I've also heard that the start up pulse on the lower wattage bulbs even when you dim the ballast can be way higher than the rated wattage of the bulb. Further damaging the lifetime of the bulb.

My favorite thing is when people ask if they can use a smaller bulb on a larger ballast. Waiting for someone to post something like, "so I tried to run a 400 watt bulb on my 1k dimmable ballast at full power and it blew up.... Anyone have any ideas as to why?"


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[BustinScales510]

I run mine at 750 for the first 5-7 days of flower usually. I used to run them at a 1000 from the start but tried it reduced and the growth rates were still the same ( I have the hoods closer when running 750). Ive never noticed any adverse effects on bulbs from running at reduced wattage, but I replace bulbs after 3 rounds anyway.

 

[ryan1918]

I believe your still using the same amount of energy still, so even though your only using 50% of the light/bulb your still using 100% of the energy, correct me if I'm wrong but you would still be drawing in the same amount of power.

 

[JMichael]

I believe your still using the same amount of energy still, so even though your only using 50% of the light/bulb your still using 100% of the energy, correct me if I'm wrong but you would still be drawing in the same amount of power.

Based on my experiences in electronics, I'm gonna say "maybe", it all depends on the circuit design. If he's only producing half the watts of light, the only way it would consume the same amount of energy is if it's somehow burning off the excess energy with something like a power resistor. Basically, you'd have to be producing additional heat to use up the same amount of energy. If you notice your ballast getting substantially hotter while running at the 50% setting, that may well be what they're doing, but if it's a digital ballast, I doubt they are doing that. Not saying I'm not wrong, but that's the way I think it works.

 

[Shanepr1313]

So 1000w
dimmable electronic ballast.
Digital
HPS
12/12

I am in early 3rd week and I was wondering is their a point in running 1000 watts right now or can i run 50% and when calyx and flowers really come in then go 1000w?

Or blast those (*&*($&$ 24/7 at 1000w?

Thanks in advance

Full power after 2 weeks bro,now I'm assuming your 3 weeks into veg and using mh bulb.Just watch that u dont have to close to the canopy.

 

[bk78]

Full power after 2 weeks bro,now I'm assuming your 3 weeks into veg and using mh bulb.Just watch that u dont have to close to the canopy.

I think his plants have dried and cured already.

 

[Oakiey]

I've been running a 1000 at 750, the first bulb ran a year till I changed it out.

I watched a good video were they had a spectrometer, the Spectrum only slightly narrowed with the power down

 

[Apalchen]

I run my gavitas all over the place depending on many diff factors. I have seen no bad effects from dimming. The manual says to break in bulbs for 100 hours at full power. The gavita controller has a sun set sun rise feature where it dims itself for first and last half hour. I can set mine at random numbers anywhere from 50-115 %. Also the controller will dim at a set temp point to lower temps if needed.

As far as answering the OP original question if they are at week 3 of flower you should def be at 100% unless your having heat issues. But I'm confused since you said you had no bud development. You should have decent bud development starting by now.

EDIT: if your in week 3 of veg I'd just run at 600 til you get ready to flower and work up to 1000 by middle of week 2 in flower.

 

[spek9]

I believe your still using the same amount of energy still, so even though your only using 50% of the light/bulb your still using 100% of the energy, correct me if I'm wrong but you would still be drawing in the same amount of power.

You're wrong.

When you dim an electronic ballast, what happens is even though the bulb can draw up to 1000W, there's a current limiter in the ballast that reduces amperage.

Example... let's use a 1000W lamp on a 120V circuit. At full power:

1000W / 120V = 8.33A

So operating at full blast, the bulb, through the ballast, uses 8.33 Amps of current at 120V.

When you dim the ballast to say 50%, what you're actually doing is limiting the amount of current (Amps) that can be used by the lamp. So if at full power we draw 8.33A, at 50%, you'd only draw 4.17A. The voltage never changes:

120V * 4.17A = 500W

You literally draw only half the current due to the ballast limiting the amount of current it can draw to 50% of its maximum. Therefore, you've reduced your consumption by 50%, by reducing the lamps output by the same percentage.