I have a VERY URGENT Question about a 400 Watt light.

So I have a 400 Wa Metal Halide bulb for some ladies in there veg. I dont want to have to go out and buy a whole new light setup for the HighPressure Sodium Flowering Part, Do they make hps conversion bulb that will fit my 400 watt metal halide ballast????

Anyone thats got some suggestions for me, you dont know how much a response would help

yes you can get a hps conversion. i think it will only run at 360 or 370w, but ya. seems like most go with the hps ballast and use a mh conv bulb, but youre good.

Resinator420 said:

So I have a 400 Wa Metal Halide bulb for some ladies in there veg. I dont want to have to go out and buy a whole new light setup for the HighPressure Sodium Flowering Part, Do they make hps conversion bulb that will fit my 400 watt metal halide ballast????

Anyone thats got some suggestions for me, you dont know how much a response would help

Click to expand...

Yes but most ballast now are hps and mh

yes there are converters look around for cheap ones on ebay or craigs list

Resinator420 said:

So I have a 400 Wa Metal Halide bulb for some ladies in there veg. I dont want to have to go out and buy a whole new light setup for the HighPressure Sodium Flowering Part, Do they make hps conversion bulb that will fit my 400 watt metal halide ballast????

Anyone thats got some suggestions for me, you dont know how much a response would help

Click to expand...

DEpends on the ballast you have, what type of light is this? Brand rather, my 400w from hydrofarm I think it is has a switch on the side to change from MH to HPS so I can use normal HPS and MH bulbs and change from one to other. They have the 430w bulbs

good deals on bulbs here

http://www.dchydro.com/product/597/430-HPS-Agrosun-Red/

http://www.dchydro.com/cgi/commerce.cgi?search=action&searchstart=18&category=BLB0

now that I am looking I see plenty of conversion bulbs for 600w

in future if given choice of one over other go with the HPS

Resinator420 said:

So I have a 400 Wa Metal Halide bulb for some ladies in there veg. I dont want to have to go out and buy a whole new light setup for the HighPressure Sodium Flowering Part, Do they make hps conversion bulb that will fit my 400 watt metal halide ballast????

Anyone thats got some suggestions for me, you dont know how much a response would help

Click to expand...

go to the hydro store . about 100 bucks

this is the message i got when i tried asking HTG if they had them

"Hello

Thank you for your interest in our products.

HPS conversion lamps are manufactured. However we do not carry them. The
reason being, when a lamp is converted to operate on a different type
ballast, there is a output loss due to the conversion. When converting a
Metal Halide lamp for exsample, the loss is only about 6%. When
converting a High Pressure Sodium lamp though, the loss is 60%, thus
making them very inefficient and even more so unpopular.

Thanks again and have a nice day
Perry
Shipping Manager"


So there you go... a 60% loss when converting to a hps from a mh ballast. so a 400 w hps conversion bulb would only outout 240 watts of power while using 400, therefore "very inefficient"

^I have a 400 watt conversion bulb from HTG Supply,($35 on Ebay) and it's supposed to be 38,000 lumens. But, when i switched it with my HPS bulb, the plants started stretching worse then they already were. It's only good for covering a 2' x 2' area, in my opinion.(maybe a couple inches more, maybe) Buy a color balanced HPS bulb and take advantage of the extra 16-18000 lumens. It'll cover more area, a little over 2 1/2' x 2 1/2' effectively. 3' x 3' will work, but they'll stretch a little. In my opinion, it's totally worth the extra money to go with 600 watts, because you practically double the lumens for only 200 more watts, and like $5 on the electic bill. It'll effectively cover a 4' x 4' area at 3,500+ lumens.(I checked mine with a light meter).

You dont need a whole new setup, you have the reflector already...a new ballast and bulb should cost you around 200$; We dont like conversion bulbs very much. Use metal halide for veg, HPS for flowering if possible, Plants stretch too much under a hps during veg. Good Luck, thegrowschool.com

I think you would be best off purchasing a MH/HPS Ballist then switching between a MH and HPS bulb, not switching between a "normal bulb and conversion bulb" on a MH Ballist. Or spend the extra cake and and get a HPS ballist and bulb setup. I know it will cost ya more, but your plants will thanks you for it! Plus you could experiment with using both types of the light spectrum during different stages of growth.