Can I use a 250w cfl on a 600w hps ballast?

Hi everyone

I have a 600w HPS with ballast block currently set up in my grow room (Im just about to start my first grow) but was wondering if its safe to put a 200w cfl directly into the reflector/ballast that came with the 600w hps? I know that the cfl is self ballasting but I dont have a hanger for it. Would be ideal if i could just swap the bulbs over to save me taking the hanger/reflector down.

Sorry if its a stupid question. I just dont want to blow anything up

Cheers

I suppose you could, considering 600W hps bulbs run at about 115V, and all ballasts are, are current limiters. You MUST unhook the starter if you do this, or it WILL blow the CFL for sure. (the starter puts out about a 2500?V spike to kick-start the hps bulbs). You be much safer hooking the socket up to a regular house wall socket, just get yourself a plug end from the hardware store. It's all up to you in the end though. Just be careful when playing with electricity. I'd go with the wall outlet option, cause it might not be healthy to use the ballast like that in the long run.

thanks for your reply

I have a lead for the cfl but I have no way of horizontally hanging it up. Would you advice wiring the cfl lead up to the relector? Or would you say that the hps lead/ballast would be safe? what do you mean unhook the starter?

God I have so much to learn..

Well HPS ballasts have a "starter" which is a part that isn't usually physically part of the ballast. The ballast is the big copper and iron part, then there is a starter, and lastly, a capacitor. Depending on who manufactured your ballast, the design will be a little different, but they're all essentially the same. Have you considered using some wire to hang the cfl sideways? It'd look kinda rigged, but it could be done safely. But yeah, your could use the reflector/socket as long as that starter is unhooked from the ballast. It's kind hard to tell you how to unhook the starter though unless i have a pic, but generally, the starter will have 3 leads, and newer ones are color coded...blue hooks to a blue wire on the ballast, red hooks to the red/lamp lead/wire going to the lamp, and black/white would be the common or ground, which also hooks to the light and ballast. Seems complicated, but it's really not. Prolly best if your not electrically inclined to just hook up the cfl not to this hps socket and just hit up the hardware store for the stuff to wire it on it's own socket

It is not really safe to open the ballast assembly if you don't know what your doing when it comes to electricity. The safest alternative would be to get an extension cord from a hardware store, cut it to length (leaving the male end attached), removing the backplate from the socket on your reflector, disconnecting the wires from it and connecting the wires from the extension cord. Then you can just plug it into the wall and your good to go. When you decide to run the HPS again, just swap out the wires and plug in the ballast.

Disconnecting the Ignitor (starter) and using the CFL as mentioned is a waste of electricity since the ballast uses power to make power and since the ballast is running your using life hours of the ballast without the benefits of the HPS bulb.

Just my .02

What dezracer said