Beware the cheap HPS tube

[Al B. Fuct]

I'd had my flowering 1000s in service FAR too long. Thought 18 mos, was very embarrassed to notice my texta mark on the tube base was 12/2004... I should be replacing yearly... but ya know...

 

Was a little low on bux, bought a couple of the cheapest 1000 HPS on the shelf in Ye Olde Hydroe Shoppe. These were marked 'made in China' and had straight cylindrical glass envelopes as compared to other big HPS jugs like the GE LucaGrow 1000s which have a pronounced bulge in the middle of the tube.

 

I whipped out my not so accurate (but good enough for comparisons) lux meter (found on special at Bunnies $20 down from $40)...

 

 

...and took a reading of the old GE 1000s at 800mm. Meter indicated 22,000 lux. New tubes had to be better, right?

 

Put in the cheap tubes, let them warm up for about 10 mins and measured. Only 4000 lux!! Let them run for about 11 hours & checked them again to see if burning them in would fix it. Nup. Still at 4000 lux. Mind you, to the naked eye, they still looked mighty bright- but in fact were only making less than 20% of the output of a tired, more than 2-year-old GE LucaGrow.

 

Took the cheapo tubes back to the shoppe and got some propa new GE LucaGrows. Put em in, warmed them up for 5 mins and they were pounding out 30,000 lux @ 800mm.

 

Wasted my time and petrol going cheap on the HPS tubes. Won't make that mistake twice.

[mull]

Good work Al B

 

You get the lux meter at bunnings? (bunnies?)

Best of lumins to ya

[sunnycoaststoner]

forsure a lesson learned hey al b, i never cheap out on bulbs, they are what makes ya grow. for that reason i even change for new bulbs every 9 months or so.

[Al B. Fuct]

Good work Al B

 

thanks

 

You get the lux meter at bunnings? (bunnies?)

 

yep, those guys.

 

It was in the discontinued/blowout bin. Lighting department.

 

Phone a few of them to see if they have one left in stock.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Al B. Fuct

[Al B. Fuct]

forsure a lesson learned hey al b, i never cheap out on bulbs, they are what makes ya grow. for that reason i even change for new bulbs every 9 months or so.

 

I've never gone cheep before. Never again.

 

I met a bloke in Ye Olde Hydroe Shoppe the other day who said he replaces them every SIX months!! I've seen the GE LucaGrow output curve- 6 mos is a tick extravagant, but I could see a replacement at 9 for you highfalutin' conny-sewers. After all, they're only doing about 90-92% of new output by then.

Edited June 29, 2007 by Al B. Fuct

[Stoney]

good to see ya tested them as you may not have known till too late

 

never scrimp on ya lights i always say they one of the biggest part of ya grow room and must be always kept up to scratch

 

good to hear they gave ya your money back

 

cheerz :Dj:

[Al B. Fuct]

Yer right, Stoney. I would have been scratching my head when I saw stretchy plants and sparse buds due to insufficient light, esp because I'd recently replaced the tubes.

 

I have a pretty good working relationship with Ye Olde Hydroe Shoppe (YOHS). Turns out that the cheap Chinese tubes were some that YOHS had bought in and house-branded. They were not aware that the tubes were substandard- I was the first buyer and they had not tested any themselves. A couple of pallets of these lamps went back to YOHS's supplier as unacceptable.

 

No one else should run into this problem- at least at YOHS. However, if other shops have also independently bought in and house-branded some of these tubes, growers will be able to spot them by their bulge-less, straight cylindrical glass envelopes... or one can save any doubt just by buying brand-name tubes from big makers like GE, Sylvania & Philips.

[Al B. Fuct]

BTW, I also bought a 400W MH>HPS retrofit lamp, also brought in by YOHS from PRC and house-branded. This lamp works great for vegging the mums. I vegged with HPS for many years cos a had a spare 400. Never bothered to switch to MH til the conversion lamps got good and cheap.

 

I'm noticing some difference in the mums already, 1 week after doing a pass of cuttings and installing the MH at the same time; leaf blades are broader, internodes look shorter but I won't be able to tell until they're ready for the next pass of cuts if the MH has really shortened up the internodes. It may or may not be a good thing as I have a preference for taller clones than most folk prefer and HPS does cause a bit of stretch in veg, a good thing in my case. We'll see.

[Al B. Fuct]

aha, found out what the problem was with the cheap Chinese HPS lamps. Apparently, a batch of Euro tubes were mislabeled as CWA. I guess when you run a 1000W Euro tube on a CWA ballast, you get about 20% of the light you should!

 

Going to test a new lot recently received by YOHS- maybe these Chinese tubes will turn out to be a bargain yet.

[Frazz]

Yea thanks for throwing some light on this subject of cheap Chinese imports, personelly im sick to death of these chinamen pushing out sub-standard product, with the worlds resources dwindling these yellow-skin midgets fail to make durable, lasting products only further using up our resources on basicly making junk that will never be of any use !!

 

Why only the other day i was getting a coupla tyres for the car and asked for something cheap and the tyre dude said 'well we got the Chinese tyres that are cheap , but more square than round in profile and go 'thup, thump, thump as they travel along ... or we got the more expensive ones from NewZeald which are actually round and are OK '

 

 

apologies to any of Chato's friends