Second Grow and About to Buy Lightsand Magnetic or Digital Ballast ?

i've read little about them both but not sure whats the best or whats the best for the dollar including to use it . does one cost little or alot more to use or does one just work little better or fair amount better for the money . i was going to go with either a 600 watt or maybe not sure but just maybe a 1000 watt and i think the mh and hps bulbs are including with the ones i was looking at .

If i wasnt for the fact that i can mount them anywhere because there so light and small i would just get mag. ballast.....

All I can say is I love my Lumatek digital/dimmable and I wouldn't recommend anything else to a friend. Worth the investment.

will the power bill be more with one type rather than the other or pretty close to the same ? thats another think i gotta try to keep a eye on .

I have a digital ballast, but I am getting ready to upgrade one tent with a CMH light and they use magnetic ballasts...where as the digital can handle MH and HPS they can't do a CMH...so I will have one digital and one magnetic...I think that digital ballasts are supposed to use less power...not sure on that...We have a really high powerbill and a really busy house, so a few super duty light bulbs can't make too much of a difference really.

i see no change in my Pg&e after switching to digi's.....like i said if you dont care about weight and dimmable just get magnetic

Power bill should be the same, assuming rated wattage is accurate. I agree with what the other guy said about e-ballasts being much easier to work with because of weight and size. Pricing online it looks like aftermarket digital ballasts have come down in price. In fact the cheapest ballasts I find are actually digital. It actually seems like they are going to end up being cheaper than magnetic or replace them in the future. Where I shop however magnetic is cheaper so that's what I usually get. They are the older tested technology, so MAYBE more reliable, but that would be the only benefit I can think of.

godless1 said:

will the power bill be more with one type rather than the other or pretty close to the same ? thats another think i gotta try to keep a eye on .

Click to expand...

godless1 said:

will the power bill be more with one type rather than the other or pretty close to the same ? thats another think i gotta try to keep a eye on .

Click to expand...

Pretty much the same. The difference in power consumption is perhaps 20w or less. Big wooo.

It would only take you a few years for the power savings to make up for the difference in purchase price. LOL

Wet

also something to consier is that ive had two digi's just stop working for no reason since i started using them.........BUT i have never had a magnetic ballast just stop working unless its like 10 years old....

I like mag for dual arc bulbs.

so mag ones have withstood the test of time ? i got between 5 to 8 plants spaced just good enough to grow kinda like a small garden you would plant in a small yard to try to get the most out of the area without them completly crowding each other . a 600 watt should be enough to cover them all shouldnt it ? i think maybe now i'm just stumped on the wattage . does the higher wattage just cover slightly larger area or do they work little better with lumens and color temp or whatever ? i want this time to be better than my first grow . i already bought a 6'' fan and carbon filter for like 99 dollars off ebay . yes more on the budget side but better than nothing just gotta get the duct to go with it later soon as it gets here .

I buy what I want for my growing needs and I have some 1000w mag's that are 12 years old and still run. More on that in a bit. I jumped on the digi band wagon about 5 years ago and had issues with them, blowing cheap bulbs, won't restart when the power goes off and just not working and interfering with my electronic instruments. All the great things they said I found mostly hype, save hydro, no heat bal bla bla. What I found was they get hot, they use just about the same $$ to run and they are 2x the cost of a mag. Now I have heard that they have fixed some issues but a good mag will last 6 years before you should tune it up with a new cap and ignitable (they do degrade over time). So I have 1 1000W digi left and 1 400w out of 6 I bought. I still have all the mags I bought except the 150$ kit ones cheap components. You can tell when you pick a 1000w up it should weigh a ton the cheap one feel like a 400.

Now with a mag about 20% of the power goes to running the box vs a digi 5%.

If you can use a 1000w that's the way to go, plus the cost is less than a 600W and you will increase your yield by 30% = $$$

Rule #1 Buy the best you can afford, mag or digi.

#2 Buy the best bulb you can, use it for 1 year than sell it online for 40$, pays for 1/2 the new bulb.

#3 Both have a higher current draw at start up, the mag way more so don't over load the breaker.

#4 Keep your receipt for a year!!!

#5 Heat kills them put a fan on them.

I buy these now, 110/220 and HPS/MH switchable and they weigh about 45 lbs each. They come like that no cover (heat kills) and the best pats money can buy. I pay 165 for them with cords and light mogul.




I'll wait a year of so before looking at them again.

600w 3x3ft three feet high 4 max

1000w 4x4 four to five feet high

View attachment 2025848

I checked the cheap 600w digital ballasts on a power meter. They warm up at about 400w then after a few minutes the increase to the full 660w. The bulb dissipates 600w and the ballast dissipates 60w. They have a perfect power factor so you can run a pair of them on a 110v outlet as long as that breaker is not used for anything else.

I get them from

http://www.brite-lite.com/Hydroponics/Hydroponic.html

i deff want the slightly better yield . i'll probly have to go with a cheaper 1000watt set up off ebay for this first grow i'll find the seller with the best feedback and if all goes ok at the end i should be able to invest in better name stuff later and maybe more if it if i'm lucky

we all start somewhere and as long as were moving forward that's good. Reminds me of a conversation about burning wood, we were splitting wood and one of the guys says he never burns pine as it garbage, and one guy say's I burn pine all the time. The other guy say's why is junk, he say's that's what grows around us so that's what I use. So use what you got but put it to good use. Peace and good luck

More light is better than not enough.
1000w = more heat than a 600w

woodsmaneh! said:

we all start somewhere and as long as were moving forward that's good. Reminds me of a conversation about burning wood, we were splitting wood and one of the guys says he never burns pine as it garbage, and one guy say's I burn pine all the time. The other guy say's why is junk, he say's that's what grows around us so that's what I use. So use what you got but put it to good use. Peace and good luck

More light is better than not enough.
1000w = more heat than a 600w

Click to expand...

On burning wood I thought you were going to tell us about the old farmer when the guy came around selling the new wood stoves. He told the farmer that if he bought one of these stoves, he would only burn half as much wood. The farmer thought about that and replied that in that case, if he bought two stoves he wouldn't burn any wood at all!

does one run cooler than the other or should i keep a desktop fan blowing over the top of it or remove the top ? but from what the tops look like is kinda like a heat sink to absorb the heat . still havnt got taxs back yet so still havnt bought a light at this point . there around a foot tall so i'm geussing i need a light kinda soon

You should have a small fan blowing on what ever you buy and if it has fins on it leave it alown but still put a fan on it. Heat destroys electronis so heat is bad, cool is better. No you can just leave it alone and it will work fine just won't last as long.

Hope your taxes come in soon.....

The mags run hotter, I don't put them in the same room but the digi still give off heat, I'll put the gun on them tonight and get a reading and be back.