ballasts and lamps

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by Acorn327, Apr 10, 2009.

  1. if i were to buy a bulb such as this hps 600 Watt HPS Grow Light Bulbs do i need to buy a ballast and a special lamp for it? or can i just throw it a normal lamp i have around the house and let it do its thing? i wanna try to get into growing but i can't see dropping close to $500 to get started at this point. thanks for any advice.
     
  2. Nope, it needs a ballast. You can find a decent 600w digital for 250ish with bulb and hood with shipping.
     
  3. No an hps will not work in a regular lamp socket, you will need a ballast and whatnot, if your looking on getting into growing and don't wanna go crazy there is tons of informaion on this forum about lower budget options like cfl lights etc....take a look
     
  4. oh i've been reading, just gets confusing. it seems like hps are better, but way outta my current price range right now. so if i get something like a 250 watt cfl will that work in a normal lamp?
     
  5. i don't believe they make 250w cfl's. Cfl's work good but it depends on how many plants and how big your grow area. Care to expand on those factors?
     
  6. nothing fancy, its in the planning stages obviously. we are planning on something like 5 plants in some type of grow box in a spare room. we don't need to get a very big yield just enough for two people to enjoy.
     
  7. #7 indicaandy, Apr 10, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2009
    well for five plants the min light requirement is about 300w so either you would need a bunch of cfls or spring for an hps and make your plants happy. a 300w hps is about 150ish on ebay. If you choose to go with cfl's a good website is 1000bulbs.com they have pretty good deals. The only problem is that cfls have poor light penetration. Also when buying you go by the lower watt number not the equivalant light value i.e 23=100w is a 23 watt bulb in respect to growing.
     
  8. alright thanks for the info, gonna be a bit more expensive than we were hoping but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.
     
  9. it always is, good luck with the grow!:smoking:
     

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