The bulbs themselves can last a very long time, thats why they are used alot in street lamps, so they dont have to change these out often. For growers they drop in lumens after so many hours depending on the bulb and size, so most of us replace them well before they burn out.How long does a lamp last??
I was told @ my local "dro shop that if you let your HID bulbs burn out, that, it can cause your ballast to fry. Is this true or are they just trying to get people to buy more bulbs...?????
OK, I'll take a guess and say no. My reason is that you see magnetic ballasts used in warehouses, garages, signage and undergrounds besides being used for growing. When they burn out at those places and nobody notices or changes the bulbs for a while, I doubt they replace the ballast everytime. As for digital ballasts, they have auto shut offs.
so you're trying to say every time a bulb goes out, your ballast also burns out? that's complete horse shit, if that is indeed what you're saying... if that were the case, people would be buying a new ballast every time their old bulbs went out..listen up its not bull shit it just happened to me ten minutes ago. i was putting in a brand nhew ushio hps and it was a defect cuz it light up for thirtys econds then started flickering then poof it was gone......i was so pissed my brand new bulb did this. until i found out the ballast is fried too. seriously pissed. its true
i have been hearing that a lot lately.. I tell ya the cheap non marked sylvania ? or phillips bulbs i received are awesome no worries.. I did have my plasma in the beginning take a crap twice but fixed the issue and growing strong now.. I beginning to thing all this amazon shit is bogus. but just me sorry to hear bout all these bulbs..listen up its not bull shit it just happened to me ten minutes ago. i was putting in a brand nhew ushio hps and it was a defect cuz it light up for thirtys econds then started flickering then poof it was gone......i was so pissed my brand new bulb did this. until i found out the ballast is fried too. seriously pissed. its true
Yeah, like said, total fluke.the only problem i had with eye hortliux blues was that they burned out quickly in my digital ballast... mine was about a month'ish old when it blew, yeah, i was pissed..
for w/e retarded reason, when they made digital ballasts, they decided to up the frequency in which they fired the bulbs from the old, magnetic styles.i forget the numbers off of the top of my head, but i'd say mag were like 5k hz, and digitals fire around 25k hz, again, i'm just totally pulling those numbers from memory, so of course i could be way off..
anyhoos, i realized that some light co's are now making bulbs manufactured for digital ballast and the higher frequencies used in them.. companies like digilux, sun pulse and ushio are all made for digi;s, and i'm sure a few others i'm forgetting as well.
i used to think that way, then i saw this thread a few years ago.. i have to say, it has changed my mind..I had bulb problems and was way pissed at the HIGH cost of name brand special NM range bulbs......
Tried Sylvania and all my troubles went away!
No fucking difference in results and I can get a case of 1k's (6) for almost the same price as 1 of some of these high falute'in name brand wallet suckers.