digital ballasts suck ass

dr.tree · Sep 15, 2013

dbkick said:
if you'd like to know how well your lighting set up really is get a welders mask and watch the flow of plasma in the arc, it should be smooth .

Good stuff man I'd like it if I knew how

tusseltussel · Sep 15, 2013

capacitor source??? why doesn't my local hydro shop carry them? any tutorials on this?

dbkick said:
if you'd like to know how well your lighting set up really is get a welders mask and watch the flow of plasma in the arc, it should be smooth .
You coil and core people should change out capacitor every two years or brightness is affected. But coil and core are very low thd and as already stated easily rebuilt.
After my experience with 5 brands of digital ballast I've decided there is only one. Where the first one I bought , a 1kw chinese made welthink worked like a champ it brought the cable guy to the door.
Lumatek , I do own one and it seems to work, don't have a welders mask to look at the arc so I just assume like all older lumatek it operates with a high percentage thd.
I'm running a quantum at the moment that I also have no comment on really, it's a ballast.
I bought a hydrofarm phantom that I THOUGHT was gonna be the shit but found out before 1 cycle was up that they do have defects, it was the first return the shop I bought at had seen of a phantom and they were surprised, I was def turned off by the phantom failure and went with solis tek, I won't be looking back.
Then there's the solis tek matrix I bought awhile back. I'll never buy another ballast .

dbkick · Sep 15, 2013

your local shop doesn't carry them more than likely because people don't replace them as needed. They wait for failure.

tags420 · Sep 15, 2013

colonuggs said:
I have a light meter...they don't...

if you use the super setting your bulb has 1/2 life...change it every crop

What kind of light meter do you have...what units does it measure in?

colonuggs · Sep 15, 2013

tags420 said:
What kind of light meter do you have...what units does it measure in?

right under the bulb foot candles and lux... I'm using both the dig and mag ballasts they put off the same

dr.tree · Sep 15, 2013

Yup all you gain with is a small watt savings

tags420 · Sep 15, 2013

Not from what I have seen with my quantum meter(actual amount of light). My 600 mags do not do as well as my buddies digitals, and we have the same brands(growops)...just the respective digital or mag versions. Anything that is judge by lumens/lux/foot candles is worthless to me and plants for the most part. But interesting there isn't still a small difference when looking based on lumens too.

Here is a public par test for a bunch of digitals and one mag. Yes the mag is a cheaper mag, but still that is quite a bit a of difference even compared to the lower end digitals.
http://growershouse.com/blog/1000w-digital-ballast-comparison-review-par-test-footprint-results-lumatek-solis-tek-quantum-phantom-galaxy-nano/

Reloader · Sep 16, 2013

dr.tree said:
Yup all you gain with is a small watt savings

Don't forget quieter, lighter, run cooler & take up less space.

dr.tree · Sep 16, 2013

+ they look cooler

tusseltussel · Sep 16, 2013

Same bulb brand and age to right. The guy with the mag is not ruining a 14 month old bulb against 3 month old or a optilume against a hortilux, right same hoods same reflectivity, right

tags420 said:
Not from what I have seen with my quantum meter(actual amount of light). My 600 mags do not do as well as my buddies digitals, and we have the same brands(growops)...just the respective digital or mag versions. Anything that is judge by lumens/lux/foot candles is worthless to me and plants for the most part. But interesting there isn't still a small difference when looking based on lumens too.

Here is a public par test for a bunch of digitals and one mag. Yes the mag is a cheaper mag, but still that is quite a bit a of difference even compared to the lower end digitals.
http://growershouse.com/blog/1000w-digital-ballast-comparison-review-par-test-footprint-results-lumatek-solis-tek-quantum-phantom-galaxy-nano/
View attachment 2823357

TheDude0007 · Sep 16, 2013

I wonder if it would be possible to do a candle grow. :-)

sorry i'm stoned. But imagine 35000 candles that will roughly be a 400 w HPS wont it. Just very difficult to keep them burning long enough and you will need to blow them out when you want your lights off. No digital or magnetic ballast needed at all.

fir3dragon · Sep 16, 2013

TheDude0007 said:
I wonder if it would be possible to do a candle grow. sorry i'm stoned. But imagine 35000 candles that will roughly be a 400 w HPS wont it. Just very difficult to keep them burning long enough and you will need to blow them out when you want your lights off. No digital or magnetic ballast needed at all.

i imagine 35k candles burning and forgetting about them and then the home burns down.

tags420 · Sep 16, 2013

tusseltussel said:
Same bulb brand and age to right. The guy with the mag is not ruining a 14 month old bulb against 3 month old or a optilume against a hortilux, right same hoods same reflectivity, right

Same bulbs(genesis 600w hps). Mags bulb and ballast are older by only 3 weeks. Digital had almost 2month on it when tested...mag about 3months I guess. Same reflectors cause I gave him one of mine that was still in the box(new). Could maybe have been a 3%-5% degradation in my hood(mag's) from being one cycle older but that's looking for difference. That's pretty close to all things equal other than the ballast.

I did not see a 30% difference in my field test like growers house...closer to 15% but that is still more light. The peaks were about ~875+/-umols@12 compared to the digital setup ~1025+/-umol@12" at 600w setting(not super lumen).

slowbus · Sep 16, 2013

my Solis Tek matrix is a PITA it doesn't like to light by the built in timer.It errors out e-04 saying there is a short circuit when trying to use 2 -600s.I wish I got the regular ST-not the matrix

slowbus · Sep 16, 2013

Reloader said:
Don't forget quieter, lighter, run cooler & take up less space.

I could argue that,but I blow air over the ballast.So all it takes is a small fan to even the playing field

dbkick · Sep 16, 2013

slowbus said:
my Solis Tek matrix is a PITA it doesn't like to light by the built in timer.It errors out e-04 saying there is a short circuit when trying to use 2 -600s.I wish I got the regular ST-not the matrix

two 600s? on a splitter?

dbkick · Sep 16, 2013

I'm wondering if when you use the internal timer is the only time it's running software that controls ignition and things. e-04 is an end of lamp life error.Since you mention the internal timer.

slowbus · Sep 16, 2013

dbkick said:
two 600s? on a splitter?

yeah,all solis tek except the bulbs.It will error out.I unplug the splitter and plug the directly from light to bal.It lights.I do the other one next.It lights.Now once they've both been lit.I then use the splitter and it will fire both lamps.
The timer works great for 1 bulb -other then that not so much

slowbus · Sep 16, 2013

dbkick said:
I'm wondering if when you use the internal timer is the only time it's running software that controls ignition and things. e-04 is an end of lamp life error.Since you mention the internal timer.

thats the common answer=EOLL but if you dig deeper it actually means short circuit also and it lights off the timer just the same

dbkick · Sep 16, 2013

in that case I'd be blaming sunpulse and their splitter.

digital ballasts suck ass

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