I just switched to flowering and my little 70 watt HPS bulb died out on me. I was wondering if, until I get the proper replacement, if I could stick a 150 watt bulb in the socket as a temporary. I know it's never a good idea to use a higher rated ballast with a lower wattage bulb, but I'm not sure about the other way around.
always a bad idea no matter what. THe ballast wont be able to power a bulb 2x its size either. btw google was all over this one lol.
Anybody that actually know what they're talking about care to explain? The ballast is more than capable of powering the bulb, just not to the wattage the bulb is rated for, but that's fine considering I'm only trying to replace the light from the 70 watter.
Watt is a measurement of power...The bulb attempts to draw 150 watts of power. This strains the ballast to keep up causing influxes in the amount of amperage...it goes to high it blows/burns somethin down...your bulb will prolly be ok the ballast will be sol
I think it's the other way around -- the bulb isn't trying to draw any particular amount of power, it's manufactured to handle a certain amount of electricity pushed to it but it's not actively "pulling" power. The ballast will put out its 70w and give way less juice than the bulb is built for, so I believe the ballast would be OK but the bulb would burn out from being underpowered. Whichever is right, we can agree that mis-matching the wattages is not a good idea and probably will lead to something breaking, if not exploding.
Yeah i wouldnt do it...i just know what I said is true with speakers and amps...lol used to be a musician but ballasts and bulbs may be different.
I finally got that replacement bulb a few days ago, the 150 watt bulb still works fine (when connected to its proper ballast), and the ballast seems to be powering the new bulb just fine. I don't doubt that this decreases the life of ballast and bulb, but I'm fairly convinced that there is no major safety hazard from using a HID bulb with a ballast that puts out less power than the bulb is meant to handle. That being said I would still really like to have a professional opinion on the subject. Any electrical engineers care to explain the physics involved in such a situation?