Light Question

Indio

Indio

Member
New to posting here, but have been reading plenty! I bought a Lumatek 600w dual ballast, and will be running it on 240v- The question I have and don't find anything in the way of an answer is; What VOLTAGE bulb do I use? The only 240w bulbs I saw on Ebay were 1000w.Do I use a 600w 120v bulb, then? I ran this by the local Hydroponics shop guy and got no usable info. Anyone here have any thoughts? *Thanks* -Indio-
 
H

hitman40

Well-Known Member
Indio said:
New to posting here, but have been reading plenty! I bought a Lumatek 600w dual ballast, and will be running it on 240v- The question I have and don't find anything in the way of an answer is; What VOLTAGE bulb do I use? The only 240w bulbs I saw on Ebay were 1000w.Do I use a 600w 120v bulb, then? I ran this by the local Hydroponics shop guy and got no usable info. Anyone here have any thoughts? *Thanks* -Indio-
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The ballast runs off 120v or 240v but the bulb is the same there aren't 120 or 240 volt bulbs the ballast takes what ever voltage and converts it to what the bulb needs.


Hitman40
 
Indio

Indio

Member
I thought that was probably the case, but considering the price of all this stuff I wanted to hear what the guys w/ experience had to say about it. I thank you very much! -Indio-
 
MT Marijuana

MT Marijuana

Active Member
600w -all good information points towards staying away from hortilux bulbs in the 600 model but possible no problems with 400w. also if you have the dimmable model and wish to dim you use the exact same 600w bulb, DO NOT put in a 400w bulb.
I have been running the same ballast. it has two reset fuses next to the two on/off switches. the newer one. I have been using Ushio HPS bulbs and they seem pretty good. have not had the ballast long enough to comment on the longevity of any of these although my research indicates ushio around $80-90 bucks is a great bang and possible even puts out more lumens. SunPulse bulbs are HIGHLY recommendes for any digi ballast apparently. They seem bomb but are about $140-150. I would have went that route but my shop was out so a went Ushio with a full shop guarantee for a year. also for veg I'm using a sunmaster MH conversion bulb... also the shop was low on inventory and sold me their secondary bulb for the lumitek. possible could be brighter but neither bulb has shown any degradation.
i love my ballast so far, which is also wired solely 240v

This is actually a very good link that helped me.
http://www.thcfarmer.com/forums/f6/ushio-hilux-gro-metal-halide-mh-lamp-w-lumatek-digital-ballast-9252/
did not realsize i had it till now but i already typed all that so I will leave it be. Here ya go, read through it, very informative.

And please stop in to see my girls -link in sig-
 
Indio

Indio

Member
MT Marijuana said:
600w -all good information points towards staying away from hortilux bulbs in the 600 model but possible no problems with 400w. also if you have the dimmable model and wish to dim you use the exact same 600w bulb, DO NOT put in a 400w bulb.
I have been running the same ballast. it has two reset fuses next to the two on/off switches. the newer one. I have been using Ushio HPS bulbs and they seem pretty good. have not had the ballast long enough to comment on the longevity of any of these although my research indicates ushio around $80-90 bucks is a great bang and possible even puts out more lumens. SunPulse bulbs are HIGHLY recommendes for any digi ballast apparently. They seem bomb but are about $140-150. I would have went that route but my shop was out so a went Ushio with a full shop guarantee for a year. also for veg I'm using a sunmaster MH conversion bulb... also the shop was low on inventory and sold me their secondary bulb for the lumitek. possible could be brighter but neither bulb has shown any degradation.
i love my ballast so far, which is also wired solely 240v

This is actually a very good link that helped me.
http://www.thcfarmer.com/forums/f6/ushio-hilux-gro-metal-halide-mh-lamp-w-lumatek-digital-ballast-9252/
did not realsize i had it till now but i already typed all that so I will leave it be. Here ya go, read through it, very informative.

And please stop in to see my girls -link in sig-
Click to expand...
MT- Thanks for the link- I was unaware of the ballast/ bulb incompatibility issue. The choice of bulbs in now a no-brainer. Thank you very much for your input, I really appreciate it -Indio-
 
MT Marijuana

MT Marijuana

Active Member
Good luck. Let me know what you end up getting and how they work for you as I am curious as well. One other thing about these ballasts that are 240v that you have to be careful about is the timer that you choose to use. Be sure, as indicated in the Lumatek directions, that your timer cuts off both positive leads when the timere turns off. Most timers only cut off one of the legs, which is fine for 120v; you just need to break the circuit. If the power is allowed to flow through one of the legs while off I bet you'll be back to your shop with one side of your ballast fried within a few weeks or months. be careful, I know tons of these ballast are getting returned with this problem and I was hard pressed to find a timer in my town which met these standards. there was a $60 hardwire model which you could wire multiple plugins to. The other was $47 from sunlight suply. It is an inline timer, you unplug your current power cord and plug this new one in which has a timer in the middle before the plug end. Good luck on your garden and hopefully you start a journal.
 
Indio

Indio

Member
MT Marijuana said:
Good luck. Let me know what you end up getting and how they work for you as I am curious as well. One other thing about these ballasts that are 240v that you have to be careful about is the timer that you choose to use. Be sure, as indicated in the Lumatek directions, that your timer cuts off both positive leads when the timere turns off. Most timers only cut off one of the legs, which is fine for 120v; you just need to break the circuit. If the power is allowed to flow through one of the legs while off I bet you'll be back to your shop with one side of your ballast fried within a few weeks or months. be careful, I know tons of these ballast are getting returned with this problem and I was hard pressed to find a timer in my town which met these standards. there was a $60 hardwire model which you could wire multiple plugins to. The other was $47 from sunlight suply. It is an inline timer, you unplug your current power cord and plug this new one in which has a timer in the middle before the plug end. Good luck on your garden and hopefully you start a journal.
Click to expand...
I had the same trouble finding a timer that broke both lines- I ended up buying a 120v greybox timer and a 120v activated 2 load 240v relay- as a bonus, I ended up with a timer controlled 120v outlet as well... Thanks again -El Indio-
 
MT Marijuana

MT Marijuana

Active Member
oh nice work, glad you are doing research. thats an interesting way to do it. nice you get the timed 120 as well. lots of people don't even read the directions and end up talkin shit about their broken product.
 
MT Marijuana

MT Marijuana

Active Member
I was in the veg room today looking around and poof! my Sunmaster 600W conversion blew. thought it was the one side of my ballast first, so i switched them over and would not fire the lamp either. took it back to the shop and got a new one. would have went sunpulse but I did not have the extra $30 on me and besides I am getting some t5's or CFL's soon enough for veg and putting another HPS in the hood and putting both hoods in my flower room. I will most likely get the sunpulse then for the HPS. They have a 3K modle recommended for flower and was wondering if anyone uses them and their thought on them. Also today I saw that sunpulse makes a 10k UV spectrum lamp recommended for use during the last couple weeks of flower. was wondering if anyone has used that particular bulb and if they thought it helped with THC production. Thanks a lot. Peace out.
 
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