Found a 600watt HPS ballast in a dumpster!

So it was in a dumpster... probably for a reason...

BUT I have had alot of experience where you find things in dumpsters and they still work so im willing to give it a shot... im just a little worried

If there is something wrong with the ballast and i plug in a brand new 600watt hps into it and turn it on... am I risking destroying my new bulb? What is the lifespan of a 600watt hps ballast? this one looks quite nice, its not a big ugly grey box like the older ones are and its shell is made of aluminum cooling fins with a nice anodized blue colour. So it doesnt look like a peice of garbage really.

Thedillestpickle said:

So it was in a dumpster... probably for a reason...

BUT I have had alot of experience where you find things in dumpsters and they still work so im willing to give it a shot... im just a little worried

If there is something wrong with the ballast and i plug in a brand new 600watt hps into it and turn it on... am I risking destroying my new bulb? What is the lifespan of a 600watt hps ballast? this one looks quite nice, its not a big ugly grey box like the older ones are and its shell is made of aluminum cooling fins with a nice anodized blue colour. So it doesnt look like a peice of garbage really.

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You should be more worried about leaving that thing on while your out. I personally could never trust it.

sell it on Ebay bro.

Saint Thomas said:

sell it on Ebay bro.

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hah and taint my perfect Ebay record!? I would sell it but only if I could at least first plug it in and see that it will turn on a bulb. I havent got any lights and im needing some soon so I thought it was a nice find, although what I really want is a 600 watt hps/mh ballast with a dimmer. might be putting my plants into some super tight quarters so the dimmer is likely needed, do they make dimmers for the 600 watt ballasts? I hadnt actually looked was only looking at 1000watt ballasts. ill just assume they do for now. Does anyone know if using a dimming ballast uses less power or does the ballast still drain the same amount of power? Does it hurt your bulb to continuously run it at a lower setting? and if i set my 600watt bulb at a lower setting say 250watt(im not sure if that setting is an option or not) am I going to get roughly the same lumens as a 250 watt bulb?

hope thats not too many questions for you guys

Sounds like you might have found a real treasure to me. If it doesn't work, it might have a blown capacitor which can be replaced by most grow shops for around $40. It sounds like it might be a digital and if it is everything is sealed in epoxy. Give it a shot man; if it doesn't work, just buy a new ballast and you're not anything in the hole.

ok I was mainly worried that if i did plug a bulb in id risk ruining my bulb, It does say Electronic Ballast on the side, so im guessing that means its Digital( or is it the other way around and Electronic = not digital??)... I dont think I could really take it to my local headshop to get them to fix it... because it was their dumpster buahahaha

What were you doing in a dumpster?

actually i typed dumpter but really it was just the big stack of garbage they leave on the curb for the garbage truck... my friend spotted it there as we were walking by and gave it to me because he had no idea what it was

I better not get too excited just incase it doesnt work, though swapping out the capacitor doesnt sound too hard to do

...and what wouldnt I be doing in a dumpster.. stores throw away all kinds of good shit all the time, ive heard of people finding laptops in dumps behind electronic stores... its better than christmas!

I have a digital ballast 400 that can switch down to 250. I run it at 250 when it gets hotter and never have problems. I use the same 400w bulb when I switch it to 250 btw. I believe 600's are switchable down to 400.

this ballast has no option for switching the wattage...

I think its going to be hard to find specs for those ballast dimmer questions I asked.... for example I dont think we should assume burning your 400 at 250 is going to create the same lumens as a 250 bulb that was designed specifically to burn at that wattage... I wonder if you could use a 400 watt bulb in a 250 watt ballast as that should be the exact same effect as the dimmer....

im so full of questions

If it was in a hydro store waste pile you can be sure its junk. If it wasn't, they would sell it as a used ballast. It was most likely defective unit returned by a customer. I wouldn't risk a $50-$100 bulb to find out!

ya hydro storeds dont make a habit of throwing equipment away, all the ones around here sell their used equipment

Have a look inside it/ plug it in.