Ok, Im looking on stepping up my grow-abilty and need some advice on where to look for truely good deals on hps light-bulbs, reflectors, ballasts and the rest. Something I can put together for myself for around $100-150 a light fixture. Ive scoured the net and cant seem to find what I need so I turn to you GC looking for a shove in the right direction. Can you help a fella out?
plantlightinghydroponics.com on the left is the list of shit. go to,,,, ahhh shit i'll do it this way it'll save you time. http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/metal-halide-ballast-kits-c-357_250.html or http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/hps-ballast-kits-c-357_251.html Cheapest you'll find. Say you go with a 400watt sodium ballast kit >$50 Youll need a bulb socket (get a 5k mogul base socket) >$6 as for the bulb, if you look at a regular sodium bulb >$20 Youll need some random 12ga wire sections, whips, thick grounded extension cords or whatever you have. keep it under $10 Make a relector out of a piece of sheet aluminum (look at a ready made one and smoke a fatty, its time to get creative. >$10 Look up replacement glass for one of the ready made reflectors and make your reflector to suit that piece of glass. >$20 Buy a 2ft section of 4" vent pipe and make your own air cool flanges for the reflector. >$4 LOOKING AT ABOUT $120.00 Not to bad. BUT You can buy a Kit from discount-hydro.com. Their "value line" 400watt switchable ballast (159.95) with a batwing reflector (that can be modified to be air cooled with glass and sheet metal) that comes with the sodium bulb (add a MH bulb for $25) if you want to spend a little extra plus shipping of course. Hope this helps.
Ok, so check it out this is the idea that has been kicked around for utilizing some inexpensive HID lights I got hip to http://www.insidesun.com/index.php?action=item&id=74&prevaction=category&previd=2&prevstart=12 http://www.insidesun.com/7b2263bdff186dfbe886b6d3d6186b11.item No building them myself this time around for sake of time and that its more economical. They will be the artificial sun for this little endevour and this is how the room is going to look as of todays Paint doodling. Im trying this setup mainly because I have read about the benifits of mixed spectrum lighting, and I figure this would be a cheap and "ghetto" way to go, because one has to "keep it real". Im not totally sure on the Lumen output ill have because I dont know exactly what cheap bulb comes with this light setup. Im working on the assumption that even the cheap 400w HPS put out 50000 lumens and the cheap MH put out about 100000, please correct this if it is wrong thinking. so that is 150000 lumen over about 64 sq ft which is about 2400 lumen/sq ft if my math is right. Here is how the trees will be arranged. The Blue area is where the plants will probably get msutly light from the MH and the Red area from the HPS as you can probably guess. The middle green area is what may be the portion we can call "prime real estate". This 8 x 8 ft area will be home to 48 trees in approx 2 gal buckets. dang Im tired, so Im gonna finish this tomorrow
Very nice. glad you found something. Just wondering if you saw that it is a refurb? I don't know of anything wrong with that, but, If you go to Discount-Hydro.com and look at their value line, they have a 400watt switchable ballast for 159.99 (Thats bulb and all) . It is worth the extra money and it is new. DH also has one of the best deals when it comes to fried ballasts, They send you a new one and pay for the shipping of the old one back. Don't know if this helps but at least check out the way their warranty works, its the best.
Light intensity of lamps decreases over distance. But dividing the total value by the total area doesn't really mean anything. Thing is, the value on the top leaves of the plant right under those bulbs will be over 5000lm/f2 (assuming they are not too far high)
Id like to thank everyone who has posted in this lame thread. And yes Don Piano I realize that those are refurbs, but if you look close you'll see that they come with a three year warranty for the 400w and a one year for the 1000w. But in retrospect having BRAND NEW stuff is alwasy great. I guess Ill have to mull it over and figure out if saving a few bucks is worth the risk.
I realize this is a super-old thread....but that's perfect for a 2 year update! They're still offering the linked kit for $100 w/3 year warranty, so I'm wondering how things worked out for you with this HPS system?!