Digital Ballasts

This is just word of mouth no experince so take it as you will. I have heard reports that the lumatek after a year of use will start to leak. I read that in a thread on GC I want to say Oldschool posted it about 8 months ago ( may be wrong). Apperently their not ucc certfied or something like that and will go bad. That is why some growers prefer the regular ballast. Now once again I just want to say this is what I read so I don't know anything other then repeating things and that is how rumors and myths do get started.
I would do a google search for lumatek digital ballast leaking or breaking.

 

Heres my experience. I actually have a nextgen(400 watt) and a lumatek(250 watt) ballast. Of the two i think the lumatek is far superior. THe nextgen is already breaking and im working to get it replaced with the warranty. The lumatek though works fine. It fires quick, runs quiet, and doesnt cause any of the AM interference or weird shit you read about on the net. I havent had any problems with that though mine are both newer models and supposedly all those problems hadnt been fixed. For what its worth i talked to my hydro guy and he said there are fewer returns on the lumateks, the most common problem being that they just stop starting. No leaking, exploding(lol), etc, just that they stop igniting lamps and cease to work. The biggest problem with nextgen is that the fans break(the problem im having now). anymore questions let me know. I did a ton of light research on all sorts of stuff before i shelled out the cash on my digital/aircooled setup. ive written some other shit on here too about nextgen/lumatek before but cant keep track of them all, if youre interested in scathing through it. hope i could help and good luck.

 

If you can stand the heat, weight, hum, and higher electricity consumption, may I suggest a magnetic ballast. They're inexpensive and don't break (very often). And repair parts are as close as your local electrical supply store. But they are hot, heavy, loud and inefficient.

 

I've only had it for 6 months so can't comment on the 1yr leakage report. However I can report my 600watt lumatek for 6 months has done an amazing job in terms of reliability, rf shielding, brightness, and noise.

 

Never had problems with my Lumatek but with any digital ballast there are some things you need to know that manufacturers don't always disclose properly.

Radio interference - I'm pretty sure every ballast on the market creates high frequency interference that will kill radio signals with in a 10-15 foot area sometimes even more. I've tested it out and the interference is more prevalent if the ballast is on the same circuit/breaker as the radio/other device.

This radio interference can also feed back into the electrical/telephone/internet lines causing cable/adsl modems to loose connection. This is mainly dependent on how you're house is wired up. This can also knock out internet access in some apartment buildings, again depending on how they are wired.

Also digital ballast can't be run on a regular flip flop as they need to be shut down before the lights are switched. You board need to have a Delay On Make timer built in to stop all the power to the ballast before the flip occurs.

 

LOL! Who doesnt turn the ballast off before changing the lamp? sorry i just found that hilarious. Im curious though where have you read about it messing with the internet. Ive heard all the hype about radio interference but ive not had a problem with that in either of mine. Id be curious to know about the source or even the post/forum you read that off of. Always looking to learn more

 

Then you don't know enough. Running a flip flop means you share a ballast between two rooms in the flower cycle. When the timer switches the relays, the power from one light bulb in room #1 is transfered over to the light bulb in room #2, the ballast runs 24/7. This is fine with magnetic ballast but with digital ballast I'll burn them out if you don't interrupt the power supply to the ballast while the timer switches the relays to the light bulbs.

This is not from reading but people that I know and actually used the equipment.

First person was using 6 Galaxy 600W digital ballasts in his house. The interference was back feeding into his neighbors cable wires and causing the cable modems to lose connection. The cable company tracked it down to his house. The cable company had to rewire his wirring and put in line filters on the polls to eliminate the noise although they didn't know what was causing it.

The second time this happened was two two people I know living in same apartment building. The digital ballast once turned on would cause the modems to lose connection through out the whole apartment building.
Once again the electrician/cable company tracked it down to both of the suites. Once they got magnetic ballasts instead of digital all problems disappeared. It was just the way the building was wired and how the internet was shared by all tenants, each suite had an cable moden/router in it wired to the telephone/cable room.

No forum info here just info from people I've known over the years who ran digital ballast. Its simple to test. Get a radio, put it on AM or FM and turn the ballast on. The radio signal will degrade.

 

This is a very good comparission about efficancy and RF shielding in current digitial ballast. It's a bit old but still worth a read. Basically all of the Lumatek caused little interferance, which is what most forum post point to also. (This is talking about new models with the internal resin coating, its works so well they claim they don't even need RF shielded cables anymore but they claim just about everything so no idea if thats true)

 

Well unless they came up with something in the last month or so even the new Lumateks still do it.

I have access to lots of digital ballasts so will be making a video in the next couple of days showing what happens to a radio signal when a digital ballast turns on.

 

http://forum.grasscity.com/general-...igital-ballast-radio-interference-videos.html