so i was wondering when you run an hps/mh on say 25% 50% or 75% does it cost less to run? and if so how much less?
i don't believe so although i can't officially confirm. someone else will. it will, however degrade lifespan of the bulb. if you are having heat issues just raise your lamp 6 inches
Depends. If you have a dimmable ballast , if you run ballast at 50% , it will consume less power to the bulb. But same power to ballast. So 1000 HP's and digital ballast runs 1000 to bulb, and about 100 for ballast fans and some loss, so dimming bulb by 50% on a 1000 watt, would be about 500 to bulb, and same 100 watts to ballast. But it does greatly DECREASE the life of bulb drastically. Also not a big drop on heat as the big 1000 bulb still a lot of hot glass.. Next time look into a select a watt ballast like galaxy or such. You can run smaller bulbs when desired. So you could veg mh 400 watt. Start flower at 600 watt. And blast last couple weeks at 1000 watt. 3 bulbs one ballast.
Maxibright have published a tonne of papers/articals on how/why their equipment was developed for optimum performance. Look 'em up.
both of my ballast will run 400,600,1000 HPS/MH bulbs but I see no need to run the smaller ones. I never use the dimmer.