light question for the guru's

So I have read something here on RIU that made me wonder about HID light selection....

My question is can I run MH bulbs off of a hps ballast say a 400w hps. I have read it a few times and it makes no sense why you would pay the extra 60 bucks for a covert able setup. thanks guru's

well what it is, is its an mh conversion bulb thats made to go into a hps ballest. i bought the lumatek 400watt set up, it came with bolth mh and hps bulbs.

when i started. I got a 400w mh veg went well. flower time came around and hum need a hps so I got a conv. bulb. One balist two lights. lol found that set up is a little week for multi grows

i think the most cost effective wat to go without compromising yeild is spend the money on a HPS for budding and use 6500K cfls or a couple T5's for vegging. If you are just using i space for vegging and budding you can swap the lights out when you want. if you have a veg space and a budding space you can be getting your next batch ready, cloning or keeping a mother in the veg space (or a little of all of it) while you are budding in your bud space. Using MH for vegging just seems to be a waste of electricity. have seen no real differnce in vegging between MH and T5's and CFL's except power usage. if you get a combo hood you will eventually get pissed off that you can only do one thing at a time.

you can get a cheap but very effective HPS from HTG Supply

sorry, i went off on a tangent. to directly answer your question. No, you can not place a normal MH into a normal HPS ballast. you need a conversion bulb or a ballast that accepts both bulbs.

Or you need to mod the ballast by adding a switch to disconnect the ignitor when you want to run normal halide bulbs.

It works, and it's not that hard. Some say it's not ideal for the bulbs or ballast but then again I see them being sold like that with a switch mod already done so who knows, ymmv.

I'm going with a 600w hps and going to leave the 400w mh for veg

Thanks for the answers...i do have separate cabinets but i was always curious as to why they had all these different setups. I use 4 foot 6500k and 5500k in the veg space and my girls luv it. So I am not the one to buy a conversion. I like saving the money on the electricity bill to run my 400w hps at the same time. Just stoned and curious... guru's you rock

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/181723-getting-more-light.html#post2344408

hey
are any of your guys able to help with some light Qs a little bit bigger than 400 watters

i have a 48 site ebb&grow bucket system already the room is equip with a Co2 burner and a huge 150 carbon filter and Max fan for heat i can't decide on lights 4-1000 watt VS 6-7 600 watters ???????