NEW Lumatek Bulbs... Anyone used these...Post what you think of them

Lumatek is definitely the only ballasts I will use now. I own two currently, a 600W and 400W. Both are switchable 120V ballasts.

Compared to the first ballast I ever bought, 400W Digital Greenhouse from HTGSUPPLY.com the lumateks are far superior.

The lumateks run much cooler and are completely silent not to mention their customer support and loyalty of their customers.

Also, as long as you get a good quality bulb to begin with you won't have any problems.

hell yea lumateks are the shit ill never buy anything else i have one old school ballast and four new school ones( just put the two on top up today!!!!).. check it out in my signature

bump.

There are compatibility issues with the 600 watt bulbs;

"My name is Jason and I am the founder of Lumatek Electronic ballasts. We try to stay away from these forums but I think this is important. Some customers are currently experiencing problems when using some 600 watt lamps. I do want to point out that the Hortilux Solarmax Grolux issue applies to ALL brand of electronic ballasts.

The lumatek ballast is a true Eballast. It has a micro processor cpu. This cpu allows the ballast to make adjustments according to the lamp that is being used. A eballast can compensate for degrading bulbs and slight power fluctuations. It can also sense the exact specifications of the lamps it is using. the Lumatek ballast is up to 27% brighter than a core and coil ballast. We do have one problem with this technology the cpu can not detect the lamp until AFTER the initial ignition. Once the bulb is lit the ballast can then take over and drive the bulb to its exact specifications. Industry specifications for a 600 watt hps lamp call for a 4000volt ignition pulse. This is what Lumatek and all other digital ballast use for a starting voltage. Hortilux ignition used to be 2000-3000 volts even though this is less then the ignition pulse of the Lumatek we did not experience any problems with the Hortilux I have lots of customers with Hortilux lamps that are over a year old However about 6 months ago we started to notice an increase in Hortilux failures. We also noticed that the font of the text printed at the base of the bulb had changed. When we tested this lamp we found that the ignition range was lowered to 1500 volts. These new Hortilux lamps are different then the ones we originally designed the ballast with and have a higher frailer rate. The problems that customers are having are NOT a ballast problem they are a bulb problem the Hortilux 600 watt is not designed to industry specifications regarding ignition pulse. Furthermore it is also manufactured with a special gas in the arc tube that no other lamp maker in the world uses. The Hortilux lamp design is unique. We are currently adapting our ballast for this bulb it may require a switch to lower the ignition pulse for Hortilux.
Solarmax and Growlux lamps are the opposite problem these lamps require a 5000-6000 volt ignition pulse Again the standard ignition for a 600 is 4000 volts. The Lumtek ballast can light these bulbs with the 4K pulse for a while however over time the lamps degrade and they require more and more voltage to start after a few months the bulbs will not ignite in any digital ballast. "

mouthmeetsoap, where did you find that info at?

yea for real. i actually emailed lumatek and this is what they sent me.


What i wrote:

Hello, I have been scouring the internet for info on your new bulbs and
> can not find anything.. Im just looking for some more information before i
> buy them.
> So i was just seeing if you could sell me on them before i go and buy a
> hortilux eye bulb. Im really excited about your bulbs because all my
> ballast are lumateks but i just don't have enough info to go on.
> Please send me some useful info so i can make up my mind.



THIS IS WHAT HE SENT ME:

Hi Corey,

The new Lumatek bulbs are one of the brightest on the market. Even brighter than the Hortilux. The Lumatek bulb has a great red with the perfect amount of blue that plants need for optimum growth. Our bulb has proven reliability on our digital ballast and is guaranteed to give you fantastic results. I have attached a spectral chart for our 1000W ballast.

Here are some other stats you might want.

Lumatek Bulb 600W

Initial Luminous Flux: 92,000(lm)
Luminous Efficiency: 150
Color Temp(k): 2,050
PAR(umol/s): 1030
Photo Flux (phyto-lm): 185,000

Lumatek Bulb 1000w

Initial Luminous Flux: 145,000(lm)
Luminous Efficiency: 150
Color Temp(k): 2,100
PAR(umol/s): 1798
Photo Flux (phyto-lm): 298,000


Regards,

John
Technical Support
Lumatek
[email protected]
Toll Free: 866-369-8943
Office: 415-233-4273
Fax: 415-532-2891
Technical support: [email protected]

That same response was copied and pasted from a thcfarmer thread, but has been posted in 420 mag, and a few other threads. It was written to a gardener who repeatedly had his bulb burning out.

I just moved my girls into flower with a 600w lumatek ballast and bulb.. everything seems fine.. but wont have a for sure answer for a couple weeks you can see it in my journal

just got my new lumatek bulbs plugged them in and it was like god was living in my grow room with all 5 lights going.... the looked like they were more whiter of a light as apposed to yellow light but i was comparing it to a bulb that has been going for about a year so its hard to tell

i will update on this thread of the difference because i will be growing under two lumatek bulbs vs a sunmaster bulb. if your interested in the outcome your should subscribe to my signature

There's a video on youtube and a guy takes a lumen meter to a 1000 watt eye and 1000 watt digitek and the digi puts out 2% more light with the same ballast.

how bout a link

i use 600w lumatek bulbs. seems like they last. had the same bulbs for over a year and they're still bright as shit. thinking of changing them soon though just cause hey say to. can always keep the old ones for backups for my friends and i. i also use 240v dual 600w ballasts in flower. you need a 240v outlet and timer though. also for veg i use lumatek 120v. i turn it down to 300w usually to save on power. they were a bit expensive but digitals are cheaper to run over time and no problems yet.