Just a question I thought I might ask. I have a brand new 120k lumen 1000 watt bulb that was a direct replacement in an old system I have and its brighter, but not by that much. Was wondering if maybe the ballast is too small or maybe if its just too old? Even if its just an age issue with the ballast, I still wanna know LOL But yea, will a 1000 watt bulb light up in a 600 watt ballast?
Nope. It won't even fire the bulb. You absolutely have to match the wattage of bulb with ballast unless you have something like galaxy's "select-a-watt" in which you can run 400, 600, and 1000w on the same ballast with the correct settings.
Actually I took apart my ballast today, the ballast inside was rated for a Single 400 watt bulb. It was igniting the 1000 watt daily, but since I took it apart to discover it was 400 watts I figured its probably a fire hazard or something. Going to pick up a new 1000 watt sunleaves
I'm not even sure how that's possible. If it WAS lighting up the 1000w bulb, the bulb wasn't running at any more than 400w.
From the experience I had when I was a noob grower, it actually would light up a 1000 W light bulb. The light bulb will only emit 600 W of power however. When I first started, I bought a 600W HPS/400W MH ballast. Being a moron I bought a 1000W HPS bulb thinking it would output 1000W total. I later realized that it was only emitting 600 W of power once I got a real 1000W ballast. If it is a higher rated light bulb in a lower rated ballast, there is no safety hazard. It just won't push the bulb to it's full potential. Now if you had a 400W MH and stuck it in a 1000W ballast, you're asking for a fire.