Honestly, for the amount that I paid, I only saved probably $30 on the bulb and ballast, plus I guess about $40 on a hood. But you can get some nice ballast/bulb/hood combos out there if you don't mind looking Around for the deals and waiting on shipping. But I had plenty of cash on me and was wanting something asap so I basically bought just the bulb and the ballast from a lighting/electric supply store. It was like 60 for the ballast and 18 for the bulb, plus $10 for the socket (to screw the bulb into), and then a couple bucks for the pig tail so that you can plug it into a wall.
The ballast comes with a capacitor and comes without any kind of fixture. Its honestly a great cheap way to get a light setup for a vertical grow, which is what I plan on doing with it soon hopefully. But if you are going to make a hood with it, I'm not gonna lie you're going to have to get creative. I took an L-shaped bar with slots all through out it, you can see it in the first picture. The ceramic socket has two screw holes in the back so I drilled some holes through the hood (it has like flanged sides that gold inwards, not the greatest for bouncing light back down but it holds the bar) and set the bar on the flange and put a crews through the holes to hold it in.
But yeah, I got lucky and found a usable piece for a hood but you can really easily make something dangerous this way. I've got shit loads of mcgyver experience and have wired houses and stuff so as far as electric work this isn't expert level shit by any means.
But that light burns hot and there is definitely potential for hazard. If buying one is in your budget and you look in the right places you can get one for almost cheap and a lot less hassle and danger.
