digital ballast?

[HashMakerOilProducts]

Did get my new ballast so my veg room is going again Edited March 19, 2009 by HashMakerOilProducts

[calaman]

Yeah Aussieponic prices on all thier stuff is way cheap. I havent ordered from them cause they seem TOO cheap if you know what i mean?

I was somewhat worried about em but their prices I figured were worth the risk so i was guna buy a digital ballast from em, then they disapeared from Ebay and that put the wind up me and scared me too much.

Their price for dig ballasts are amazing considering other stores are charging like 100 more, then again they are only growlush. Newage hydro got 400Wlumatech for 260, Disc hydro (who i reckon are next cheapest after aussieponics and i buy from) are 248 for lumatech.

Do you think they grow any better Hashbean? When I started out years ago i didnt know about the whole ballast bomb thing and i have to admit it scares the crap outa me. Mine have done about 4or5 grows now and Im thinkin of replacing

Cant digital be used for MH and HPS? If thats the case I reckon that is worth the cost alone. Lower start up amperage would be good as i keep burning out timers - about 1 a month

Wot do you mean about Disc Hydro Muckster - best in the business? their website? I suppose its ok as u dont have to follow links evrywhere to get prices - that fuckin shits me! Like i said, i buy from em.

I had some probs with some nutes couple of weeks ago and they sorted it out for me - kind of. Mind you they told me they'd posted it and hadnt and then ignored me. It didnt come unti i sent a nasty email to the nute company (they'd ignored me for over 2 weeks too). In the end it all got sorted out, i got replacements and they sent me extras too so i'm happy, though i wasnt for about a week - i was cursin em all!

Edited April 3, 2009 by calaman

[H&D]

Ive got a friend who just bought a digi ballast and he was telling me there is a fair bit of interfearance with it ...

He did say the frequency range but ive forgotten (The guy knows his shit about electronics) He was saying a double shielded cable should fix the prob and told me he wrapped his in aluminium foil and it did drop the interference down consicerably , He was saying that your neibours would be experiencing the same interference as you and that if someone who knew what they were looking for would know you were running something which generated it ... It can be detected with an Osilospcoe ...

[yields]

thay give out 30% more lumens and i get up to an extra year out of my globes useing digital. thay cycle 1000s of times faster than old balasts so your plants get a constant light not the flicker (you cant see it but your plants can and on video you can

thay are much safer to use than the old style ballast with built in circut brakers ,old balasts have glass or ceramic cricut bulbs that blow when there past there usedate..

digi balasts are very quite.

lumatek brand is the best out there, other brands have been knowen to overheat and leak resain .

my power bills are only a few dollars more with 600watt digital than thay were with my old 400watt ballast.

lumatek brand also has a super lume buttom that will give you an extra 10% lumes with MH globes .

i think if you have the extra $$'s go digital , old tecnolagy will do the job and its getting cheaper all the time but i dont like to going backwards when the future is so bright...

THEBEAN..

I 100% agree with this post!

[yields]

Yeah he's definitely trying to rip you off.

 

Ordered from Aussieponics, Growlush brand, Here's the link

 

These guys are a bit sneaky too, the ballast on it's own is $250 so you might as well get the combo.

Growlushs products are garbage including their magnetic and the digitals ballast.

 

You cant run both MH and HPS on their 400watt digitals have a look on the site yourself, TRUE digitals have a ability to run both.

 

Lumatek is the only digital ballast in the Australian market worth having......HANDS DOWN!

 

Conclusion.......You get what u pay for.

[SoliSticS]

Growlushs products are garbage including their magnetic and the digitals ballast.

 

You cant run both MH and HPS on their 400watt digitals have a look on the site yourself, TRUE digitals have a ability to run both.

 

Lumatek is the only digital ballast in the Australian market worth having......HANDS DOWN!

 

Conclusion.......You get what u pay for.

 

 

I recently purchased a Growlush digital 600W ballast. What's the issue with them? This is my first grow so no prior experience with ballasts to rely on.

[calaman]

well growlush bulbs are the cheapest arent they...

Wot sort of interference? like TV static, mobile fone or wot? Having to insulate leads with foil sounds like someones tryin to cut costs

 

How long you been runnin the 600 dig for Sol? IIs it hot or anything? I have no experience of em so dont know, i just know my old styles run hot as hell and i have enuf heat probs as it is.

I run a 400MH and a 400 HPS (someone told me years ago its best to run both types of lite and it gives me wider footprint) side by side and if wot someone said earlier about power costs it may be worthwhile to upgrade to 2 600W digies. As i understand it they have a switch for changeover dont they?

[yields]

I recently purchased a Growlush digital 600W ballast. What's the issue with them? This is my first grow so no prior experience with ballasts to rely on.

 

I have had more than one of their magnetic ballast fail within the first 12 months of use! Had brand new grow-lush lamps that didnt work which had be returned (pain in the arse), this is reason why I wouldnt buy anything grow-lush. Bloke at the hydroshop has stopped stocking thier products due to all sorts of dramas, ballast catching on fire or not working at all (magnetic) 2-3 lamps per box not working the list goes on. Havent heard much about their digitals because there still new on the market but its only a matter of time IMO.

 

Lumatek ballast have been used all around the world and have been proven, no RF interference (in my experience) its also got the lumen booster switch which adds an extra 10% lumens and so forth and so forth.

 

As I said before u get what u pay for.

[yields]

well growlush bulbs are the cheapest arent they...

Wot sort of interference? like TV static, mobile fone or wot? Having to insulate leads with foil sounds like someones tryin to cut costs

 

 

"Customers should avoid all digital ballasts that do not have RF shielded lamp cords. The RF interference from these digital ballasts is substantial. If you do not see a metal shield between the outer coat and the wires on the inside of the lamp cord, the cord is not shielded. Digital ballasts do not interfere with FM radio stations but do cause static on AM stations. The better quality digital ballasts, such as the Lumatek, cause the least amount of interference. It should be noted here that the 750w Lumatek ballast we tested was of their latest revision. Ironically, this revision does not utilize an RF shielded lamp cord; Lumatek claims that this is due to internal changes made to the ballast that make the RF shielding unnecessary, and as you can see by the test results, it produced virtually no interference after the first few seconds. Lumatek claims that all of their ballasts will utilize this same construction in the near future."

 

http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/static/articles...igiballasts.asp for full test results.

 

[SoliSticS]

How long you been runnin the 600 dig for Sol? IIs it hot or anything?

 

I've only been running it for 2 weeks but there's no buzzing/humming etc. and it's only a couple degrees above ambient room temperature whilst running.