E-ballast test: Lumatek, BAL, Leuchtek

[Dave Coulier]

Looking forward to a possible Quantum test. Thanks again.

 

[Hawk]

tag

 

[susantidad]

hello all,

thanks for all this info whazzup, i´m thinking about to buy a 400W lumatek balast for my indor, and your posts are very interesting for me to decide what to do.

regards,
susantidad.

 

[ClosetAdvocate]

Great thread.

 

[LAMBS-BREAD]

I got this mail from Lumatek people:

We are shortly going to release a Lumatek Lamp that will be guaranteed for a year when used with our ballasts, in the mean time all the best lamps work well with our Ballast; Osram and Powerplant work very well indeed, avoid the cheaper lamps.

Hope this help u guys pick out the right bulb...Got myself a Lumatek 600w Ballast with the super lumens switch, planing to use it with a powerplant bulb with a avenger adjust-a-wing pro. I can't wait to try this new settup!

 

[Green&Gold]

This is a bit off-topic, but has anyone tried firing a 400w CMH in their dimmable Lumatek?

I saw post where cannaboy describes doing it. http://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3005344&postcount=54

 

[Bud Bug]

I got this mail from Lumatek people:

We are shortly going to release a Lumatek Lamp that will be guaranteed for a year when used with our ballasts, in the mean time all the best lamps work well with our Ballast; Osram and Powerplant work very well indeed, avoid the cheaper lamps.

Hope this help u guys pick out the right bulb...Got myself a Lumatek 600w Ballast with the super lumens switch, planing to use it with a powerplant bulb with a avenger adjust-a-wing pro. I can't wait to try this new settup!

From knowing tens of growers over the year who use digital ballasts there are only a few bulbs that will burnout or even explode in digital ballast.

Hortilux bulbs are no good and it'll burn out or the quartz filament will fall off.

Gavita 600W bulbs which normally kick ass on conventional ballast either will burn out or (and I've seen this first hand) crack the glass/break the the base and fall smoking hot onto your flowers/dirt/etc...

For 1000W bulbs with virtually zero failures are either 1000W Sylvanias , Phillips green dots, Sylvania Plantstars and Ushios.

For 600W good bulbs are GE 600W and Ushio's.

 

[TLoft13]

Can't +rep you enough Wazzup, would be interested in further testing, too.
May i suggest Quantums and this http://www.e-ballast.de/, which should be available here: http://www.muselmann.de/.
The E-Ballast is a german product claiming to be better than Lumatek and BAL, claim supported by inhouse testing.
From what I've read the company owner would love to get some outhouse testing done, so maybe he will give you some ballasts for free.
Greetings;
TLoft13

 

[AOD2012]

yes, repeating what everyone says, thank you very much for this great information. i have been running two 600 watt lumatek eballasts, with sylvania grolux bulbs, and i am very pleased. once again, thank you very much.

 

[snuggles]

great thread, very interesting comparison.
thanks a lot for testing and posting!

i also use the dimmable lumatek ballasts since a few months with 600w bulb from gib lightning. switch from 400w in vegging to the 600w in flowering and also had no problem with that combination so far.

@ TLoft13: are you sure, those german e-ballast tests you mentioned didn't take place before these newer lumatek appeared on the market? afaik, those comparisons/testings were made with the old lumatek hardware.
sorry in advance if you are talking about another, newer test run they made since then.

rgds,
snuggles

 

[Grasso]

Hi,

you are more of an advertizer than a tester because you do not tell us that there are disadvantages.

Electrolytic capacitors used in electronics wear out faster than foil capacitors used in electrics. One can change the latter socketed in seconds but if the former fails the complete ballast is waste. An old-style ballast is fully recycable, and the heap if it, the coil, does not fail. Contrasting that, blown electronics are annoying, toxic and unavoidable.

Electronical ballasts are poorly designed, causing a current surge on switch-on which can trip the mains fuse. I think high-wattage PC power supplies had the same problem. Talk about electrical surveillance!

The technical matter is still a playground. Low-pressure gas-discharge lamps can be run with many Kilohertz instead of 50/60 Hz, but according to Osram Lighting high-pressure ones cannot. Hollywood and the Olympics drive lamps with rectangular signals of a 120 Hz or so (synchronized to cameras) fundamental. Ionisation and dielectricity at high temperatures is a mess.

They don't dissipate a lot of heat, the pcboard is sealed and the casing is closed so you can hang them close to your lights. ... Best would be to place them right on top of the reflector

That is wrong. An electronical ballast needs to be cool -- less than 100 degree Celsius for the used electrolytic capacitors and semi-conductors and less than 70 or so for the whole enclosure. That is why the enclosure is made as a heat sink. One must not fix it on a reflector which gets hot. Wiring to the bulb must be isolated with silicon, not with PVC.

Greetings,
Grasso

 

[TLoft13]

@ TLoft13: are you sure, those german e-ballast tests you mentioned didn't take place before these newer lumatek appeared on the market? afaik, those comparisons/testings were made with the old lumatek hardware.
sorry in advance if you are talking about another, newer test run they made since then.

rgds,
snuggles

Can't find something about the exact date, sorry, homepage says 2009 in general!?

 

[snuggles]

Can't find something about the exact date, sorry, homepage says 2009 in general!?

also had 2009 in mind. likewise, i am not sure about the exact time when that muselmann(?) tech guy postet his testing results with the ballasts.
just remember, that guy tested his own product and finally recommended it as best.
although, very friendly and open-minded guy, cool enough to make offers to any initerested tester to proof him and his product wrong if possible.
at that time i planned to upgrade to the new lumateks, which unforunately weren't available yet. that's why i assume he tested in 2009 with the older generation of those ballasts.
but really not sure about that. will look for one of those bookmarks i set, leading to that testing results...

rgds,
snuggles.

 

[TLoft13]

just remember, that guy tested his own product and finally recommended it as best.

Like i said, inhouse testing.
He said on a german MJ forum though he would gladly take up offers from others, university or whatnot.
You should take him up on it.
Worst case you get one for free- if you don't like it PM me for my postadress!
TLoft13

 

[snuggles]

yes TLoft13, i think we are talking about the same guy/thread. quiet objective and well documented. offer in 2009, before those new lumateks came out.

i didn't intend to go badmouthing with my post above if it sounded like that :/
guess it's just my personal suspicious attitude when in the end it all comes down to a point where someone wants to sell something. no bad intention here, just wanted to remind some usual caution.

the offer he made and the whole project sounded very attractive to me. unfortunately i do not think to have the possibilities to seriously take him up on that one.
but i'd love to, that's for sure.

rgds,
snuggles

 

[whazzup]

From knowing tens of growers over the year who use digital ballasts there are only a few bulbs that will burnout or even explode in digital ballast.

Gavita 600W bulbs which normally kick ass on conventional ballast either will burn out or (and I've seen this first hand) crack the glass/break the the base and fall smoking hot onto your flowers/dirt/etc....

The problems with the lamp can be resonance of the arc tube (you can see the standing waves if you wear a welders mask) or even bending of the metal frame inside the lamp. The Gavita IR 600 is not suitable for electronic ballasts (yet) - Gavita is looking for an alternative arc tube. The 400W model has no problems with digital ballasts. Most 400 lamps have no problem with them btw.

Hi,

you are more of an advertizer than a tester because you do not tell us that there are disadvantages.

Electrolytic capacitors used in electronics wear out faster than foil capacitors used in electrics. One can change the latter socketed in seconds but if the former fails the complete ballast is waste. An old-style ballast is fully recycable, and the heap if it, the coil, does not fail. Contrasting that, blown electronics are annoying, toxic and unavoidable.

Even worse: Electronic ballasts are a lot less reliable than the magnetic ballasts. When n electronic ballast fails, it just stops working. So prepare to encounter a problem with an electronic ballast if you are using a lot of them. Warrenty is important. On the other hand: a magnetic ballast starts to deteriorate the moment you start using it.

Electronical ballasts are poorly designed, causing a current surge on switch-on which can trip the mains fuse. I think high-wattage PC power supplies had the same problem. Talk about electrical surveillance!

Yes, electronic ballasts do have an inrush current, as have the magnetic ballasts with their big capacitors. Some electronic ballasts have higher inrush than others, depending on the input circuitry, but not a lot different from the magnetic ballasts. The power factor is very high (with a magnetic ballast that depends on the state of the capacitor) and there is no need for filters to block harmonics.

The technical matter is still a playground. Low-pressure gas-discharge lamps can be run with many Kilohertz instead of 50/60 Hz, but according to Osram Lighting high-pressure ones cannot. Hollywood and the Olympics drive lamps with rectangular signals of a 120 Hz or so (synchronized to cameras) fundamental. Ionisation and dielectricity at high temperatures is a mess.

There are HPS lamps developed specifically for Electronic ballasts. The Philips Greenpower 400V EL series (EL for electronic) is exactly that. Philips even developed two ballasts specifically for these two lamps. They offer 8% more grow light and maintain >95% of their light over 5000 hours of use. A bit more expensive but you only need to change it once a year. In the right combination with the Philips ballast guaranteed to work @ 100 khz.

Gavita just won the European product award for best new Dutch product with their Pro 600 ballast, which is based on a special Philips PCB adapted for 240V, driving that particular 400V lamp. Power to the people

That is wrong. An electronical ballast needs to be cool -- less than 100 degree Celsius for the used electrolytic capacitors and semi-conductors and less than 70 or so for the whole enclosure. That is why the enclosure is made as a heat sink. One must not fix it on a reflector which gets hot. Wiring to the bulb must be isolated with silicon, not with PVC.

Yes, I totally agree. I was more thinking about the integrated fixtures where the ballast is connected to the reflector. The heat that is dissipated is convected heat, not radiation so it will normally not get to your plants. A bit like this:


This one of course has silicon wire too.

I would love to test a few more ballasts and at some point I am sure I will. Situation is a bit different now as I now work for Gavita. They bring their Pro ballasts to our market this year and have been very successful already doing so. I'll be at the Grow 2010 trade show for Gavita doing a light seminar.

Still, I think that the Lumatek is a good ballast! Test says so, can't argue with that (yes, I use them myself too ).

There are not many bulbs that really hold in a high frequency electronic ballast. If you have enough voltage, a magnetic ballast still does a very reliable decent job, just don't forget your maintenance as they get hot (check your connections) and change your capacitor every two years.

Sorry I have not been paying much attention to this topic as I have been a bit busy lately. But I promise I'll be back

 

[Grasso]

Hi,

The problems with the lamp can be resonance of the arc tube (you can see the standing waves if you wear a welders mask) or even bending of the metal frame inside the lamp.

There are two types of electronical ballasts, low-frequency ones (around 100 Hz) and high-frequency ones (above hearing frequency).

LF ones have been used since ages in Hollywood. Certain bulbs used in cinemas draw 20 Kilowatts. Low wattages types with 20 to 150 Watts were introduced in the small-scale lighting market by Osram a decade ago.

The HF ones on the other hand are a purely grow-related thing. They came up for cannabis five years ago. HF means smaller size ("cheaper") and greater influence ("blow-up") than LF. But if you say that Philips recently started to pick up these technics I do not doubt that it works rather well.

On the other hand: a magnetic ballast starts to deteriorate the moment you start using it.

Ignitor and compensation capacitor do. The coil hardly does.

Some electronic ballasts have higher inrush than others, depending on the input circuitry, but not a lot different from the magnetic ballasts.

I do not think so. Several home-growers who received electronical ballasts found out that they had to push back up the tripped automat all the time. The smoothing capacitor used in a 600 Watts PC PSU (comparable to an electronical ballast as both use HF) is several times bigger than the compensation capacitor of a conventional 600 Watts ballast. Big electronical ballasts can be made to work by employing a temporal resistor which limits current on power-on. The same issue was with big audio amplifiers decades ago.

Greetings,
Uli

 

[whazzup]

Hi,
There are two types of electronical ballasts, low-frequency ones (around 100 Hz) and high-frequency ones (above hearing frequency).

LF ones have been used since ages in Hollywood. Certain bulbs used in cinemas draw 20 Kilowatts. Low wattages types with 20 to 150 Watts were introduced in the small-scale lighting market by Osram a decade ago.

The HF ones on the other hand are a purely grow-related thing. They came up for cannabis five years ago. HF means smaller size ("cheaper") and greater influence ("blow-up") than LF. But if you say that Philips recently started to pick up these technics I do not doubt that it works rather well.

All horticultural lighting companies in The Netherlands have made a switch to electronic HID ballasts as they are much more efficient and safer, not because they are much more reliable than magnetic ballasts. If you have 20,000 1000 Watt lamps in your greenhouse then 40-50 watt per ballast saved is a huge benefit, especially when you need to light them up as much as we do in our dark season.

However, the HID lamps have never designed to work at these high frequencies, causing lamp failures by overheating and bending of the frame and acoustic resonance of the arc tube. The frequency is very critical and the combination ballast / lamp should be tuned. For example the Quantum, BAL and Leuchtek ballasts operate at a base frequency of less than 40 kHz (around 35 kHz), the Lumatek operates at as much higher frequency: it starts at >70 kHz. The Philips ballast starts at 100 kHz. When regulated to lower power all electronic ballast output a higher frequency.

The Philips lamp has been designed especially for the HF ballast and is tuned to the frequency of the Philips ballast, preventing overheating and acoustic resonance.

Ignitor and compensation capacitor do. The coil hardly does.

It is my experience that if your coil is not a very good quality it can start to hum: Cheap magnetic ballasts start to hum after a while. The plates get a bit of space being warmed up and cooled many times. A good quality coil will not do that. Also, the capacitor should be replaced every now and then (about every 2 years) and I do not see any grower ever do that. That implies that the power factor of your ballast will increase, causing much more current to flow through your wires. Especially in low voltage systems this can be a huge problem as the currents are much higher in these systems. Professional greenhouses in The Netherlands operate on 400V systems.

I do not think so. Several home-growers who received electronical ballasts found out that they had to push back up the tripped automat all the time. The smoothing capacitor used in a 600 Watts PC PSU (comparable to an electronical ballast as both use HF) is several times bigger than the compensation capacitor of a conventional 600 Watts ballast. Big electronical ballasts can be made to work by employing a temporal resistor which limits current on power-on. The same issue was with big audio amplifiers decades ago.

Indeed the inrush of switching power supplies is a problem, but the same goes for magnetic ballasts. There are several soft-start systems available which limit the initial inrush, so that varies per brand, but you have a good point there, both have an inrush and both should be switched through a contactor. An electronic ballast is not a guarantee for lower inrush at all.

The big problem I see in Europe however is that people use too many lamps on one group anyway. Some use (I am talking about 230V systems now!) 4x600 watt on a 16 A 230 system. I would personally recommend half of that actually. I can see the same happening in other countries. Also using the right fuse/automat type helps a lot - in Europe we recommend the C types instead of the normal household B types.

Thanks for your comments

 

[ITryToGrow]

The big problem I see in Europe however is that people use too many lamps on one group anyway. Some use (I am talking about 230V systems now!) 4x600 watt on a 16 A 230 system. I would personally recommend half of that actually. I can see the same happening in other countries. Also using the right fuse/automat type helps a lot - in Europe we recommend the C types instead of the normal household B types.

Interesting, could you explain this further?

I use 2x600 and 2x400 on one 16A 230V (automatic type C)

All lamps are on Lumatek e-ballasts and I only light one combination (1x600 and 1x400) at a time (ie I light one combination and 5 minutes later I light the second).

I can't see how using about 55% of the available current to be a problem? The general recommendation, if my memory serves me right, is to not go above 75% continuous.

Cheers

 

[Grasso]

Hi,

since big electronic ballasts shall have no blind current that should work and does in your case. But a slow trip (C) characteristic means lower safety than a fast (B) one.

Greetings,
Uli