Bulb and Ballast help plz

hi everyone i am new here and new to INDOOR growing! was wondering if anyone knew anything about or had experience with the Lumatek/Galaxy digital ballasts and/ or pulsar ballasts compared to normal ballasts? also was wondering wut everyones opinion was on the best 400w bulbs? in need of some help! thanks

i hear the digital ballast runs cooler, lasts longer, and lets the bulb last longer/degrade slower. some good grands for bulbs are hortilux and agrosun or agromax.. i forget

spliffwhiffer said:

hi everyone i am new here and new to INDOOR growing! was wondering if anyone knew anything about or had experience with the Lumatek/Galaxy digital ballasts and/ or pulsar ballasts compared to normal ballasts? also was wondering wut everyones opinion was on the best 400w bulbs? in need of some help! thanks

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Digital ballasts are too new to give real good feedback. They had problems with RF (radio frequency) interference in some models due to lack of shielding in some of the cabling. They do give off less heat and are suppose to use slightly less power and are lighter. I am not sure they are worth the extra cost and have the reliability indexes of the standard heavy dinosaur tonka truck ballasts. I would let someone else be the guinny pig as these bad boy have only been around a couple of years or so.

For bulbs I use the Hortilux EYE HPS and MH.

yea the galaxy and lumatek ballasts have the sheilding for radio frequency..i know that for sure...any1 have any experience with these? and i havent been able to choose between hortilux, agro, or grolux....the MH agro bulbs have extra red light in them and the HPS agro bulbs have alot of bluw light in them...any suggestions for bulbs or info on the bulbs i listed would be appreciated

russ0r said:

i hear the digital ballast runs cooler, lasts longer, and lets the bulb last longer/degrade slower. some good grands for bulbs are hortilux and agrosun or agromax.. i forget

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You can't go wrong with any of these bulb brands. As for your question about specialty bulbs that you can use during the entire grow, people seem to be pleased with them around here. I would rather have a MH conversion with a standard HPS bulb. No need to compromise.

yea but the hortilux give more lumens which equals bigger yeild..plus i might go with a galaxy or lumatek ballast which supposedly makes the bulb give off more lumens and pushes it to its maximum strength! jus wanted to see peepl opinions on different types of HID bulbs?

i found a lumatek 400w ballast for 188 online..i thought it was a good deal but my buddy said there about the same price at the garden store so i dont know yet...still need more opionions about them please!

russ0r said:

i hear the digital ballast runs cooler, lasts longer, and lets the bulb last longer/degrade slower. some good grands for bulbs are hortilux and agrosun or agromax.. i forget

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yeah it does all that, AND it saves you $$$$$money$$$$$ per year,

400w is like 50-70$ a year on power
600w is like 70-100 a year on pwer bills
1000w is 150+ you will save per year on ur power bill.

so would u say its worth the money? about 185 just for the ballast?

Personally i'd look for a deal type into ebay search- i'm sure you can find the ballast and reflector with lights for 200 i seen just the ballast for 129 free shipping from the hydrosource and they are a pretty good company on ebay for the 400 wattr- let us know what you get andfrom where i'm always looking for deals, do they have a sellers/buyrs/ forum here?