Any light experts surfing around in here? I recently started shopping at a new hydro store in town with great prices, maybe to great. I picked up a 1000w hps for $150 canadian. A great bargain in my eyes anyway. (bulb not included of course) Ive been running it since saturday and already having troubles. Sunday only 16 hours into its lifespan it died on me leaving my beautiful girls in dark for im not sure how long until i got home and noticed. I quickly drove down and had it replaced since it has a 1 year warranty, the guy there tried to diagnose a problem but couldnt find one except for the fact it was VERY hot, even after a 25 min drive to the store it was still hot. So im on my second ballast now, and same shit! it has died yet like the first fuck holy $%@* is this thing getting hot, im worried its gonna crap out again and i dont wanna do anymore harm to my girls by messing up light schedules. How hot should a ballast get? This is pretty bad, yo u cant touch the ballast for more than 2 seconds its that hot. Sorry for a long rambling post just trying to get this sorted out, couple friends told me to go with a more expensive digital ballast. Maybe ill try that next. What do you say GC? EDIT: just to give you guys a rough idea, i ran a digital thermometer over the ballast just now and im getting anywere from 140-165`F depending on were i take the temp from.
I would say that your ballast is running too hot for sure. I use Lumatek Digital Ballast and I can place both hands on the top and side of the ballast without having to remove them due to heat. The ballast are warm, sometimes almost hot but never so hot that I can't place my hands on them....The environment operating temps for Lumatek is up too 122 degree's and the encloseure temps 95 degrees. Have you checked the MFG website for your ballast for the specs on temps ranges?
Where is the ballast located when its in use. On a cool floor? Near the hot ceiling? In the growroom? I also have a lumiteck digital 600w ballast and i had to learn the hard way that it got to hot to keep inside my room. like ^^^^^^ said above me i can wrap my hands anywhere around my ballast and its hot. But not to hot to make me let go. Plus it makes 0 noise. I think its the bomb. Does the store have a different brand thats the same wattage that you can trade for? To bad you cant put it outside, or get some outside air to it without messing up ur room. Its only 8 degrees here and im 300 miles south of alberta. It must be as cold as a witches tit up there.
haha yes, we've had a few nice days here this week but it has been pretty damn cold! I have the ballast sitting just outside my room on a cool cement floor, ill prob pick up a fan tonight to see if that will help in cooling it, and also talk about buying a better ballast aswell with my buddies at this new store. Thanks for all the input
I have one 250 W HPS, inside an enclosure with a reflector and ballast. It is intended for outdoor usage, but I removed the panel over the ballast and mounted one 120 mm fan @ 12 V just above the ballast (phillips brand) in order too cool it down a bit - it was waay too hot, before i decided to remove the plastic panel from the enclosure. i think it's still quite hot - when i put my fingers next to it it feels very warm, perhaps it would burn me a bit it i touched it , but due to the design of my lamp i am unable to relocate the ballast outside without doing some rewiring. the HPS is mounted inside a wardrobe, on the topmost side, along with 4 CFL's (2 x 16 W 2700 K and 2 x 50 W 6700K) i have one 120mm intake fan at the bottom and one 120 mm exhaust fan at the top of my wardrobe, the opposite corners What is the maximum temperature for growing good weed without losing thc/cbd and degrading quality? 33 Degrees celsius (91.4 F)? i heard 28C degrees (82 F) is the "perfect" temperature for indoor growing, but i can't get near it without a cool tube i guess so how hot is too hot (for the air and for the ballast?) check out my design so far: (no pics right now so i made a quick 2d mock-up sketch of my wardrobe)
Well as far as the ballast goes, I think that is based on many variables, including MFG. and location, temp of the area where it's located, etc.. From a grow room aspect, 75-83 degrees unless your using c02..
Thanks! Today I removed the ballast from the Lamp's body, now it is positioned outside the wardrobe with a 80mm fan blowing aside it. Rewired everything very carefully, with longer cables and it works like a charm. Now I can touch it without getting burned and I can hold my finger over it for as long as I like - the 80mm fan does its job perfectly when stationed outside. It is only mild hot - I'm very happy! Before, when the ballast was inside i couldn't even touch it for a second! My wardrobe temp dropped as well to acceptable levels!