Hi all, Since im trying to cram as much flouro power as i can into my grow box ive decided to alter the existing Compact flourescent bulbs im gonna get. Since most of the heat in these bulbs is created from the integrated ballast,it would be a good idea temp wise to remotely position the ballast, it also saves lots of space and you dont need bulb sockets either.This means that u will end up with a smaller cooler running flouro tube and even more space for lights in ure grow box than before. Below i have a pic of a busted cfl i dismantled.its a phillips warm white 1200lum's 18w energy saver.the bulb,socket and ballast altogether added up to 18cm in length and a very wide ballast.after removing all that crap it ended up being just a 9cm long flouro tube.So instead of only having enough space for 3(54w) of these i can now use 6(108w) or maybe 8(144w).Not only that but the lights and reflector only take bout 3cm off the height of the grow,that is good space saving.theyre so small they could be put around the walls of the growbox and close to bud sites etc..... Basically its Making that Compact flourescent even more compact and even cooler. CWL
bad idea 4 many reasons, the best reason not to do it is haslle. just get some tubes the lengh of ur box and cram them in. getting a balast is no prob as u can run 5x20w tubes off 1 100w balast and starter. if u find 2 40w balasts (a v common size) then thats 4x20w tubes. ive got 6 balasts kicking about that r rated for tubes from 75w to 100w and plan to build a cloning box with 1 balast and 2 x 40w tubes. that shud clone them and get them up2 size to go in the flowerin room. just a thought. oh and remember the tubes u use dont have to b the same watt as the balast, just near enough, u can over or under run tubes. if u over run tubes tho then they do get hot, if u under run them then they run very cool. if heat build up is a prob then run 60w of tubes off a 40 to 50w balast and the tubes shud b so cool that u can have the plants touching them all the time with no ill effects.