E-ballast test: Lumatek, BAL, Leuchtek

[whazzup]

I'm sorry to answer so late, I hadn't seen the question. Not going above 75% is fine, if you have a direct connection and not tap it from a household socket in the attic . What is possible and what is safe are two different things. Many people interpret it as safe to use 30 meters long wires that have about 3 interconnections on their way to the socket that has been built for 10 amps continuous maximum. I published a lot of pictures on Wietforum where you can see the burned out plug and socket in such an installation.

Though an electronic ballast has a high cos phi (power factor) and therefore almost no blind current it does have and inrush current. Ballast inrush currents can be 40-100A, depending on the type of ballast. A B automatic fuse trips at 3-5 times nominal current, so for a 16 amps that would be an inrush of 80 amps. That's just two ballasts? Now you and I know you can have many more on a 16 amps fuse. The 3-5 times is specified for a full 50 or 60 Hz hz cycle. The capacitive however inrush is very short. In reality the B automatic fuse trips at around 190-200 amps inrush. The C trips at normally at 5-10 times the nominal current but in reality around 270 capacitive inrush (source: Holec). So with 4 x 600 watt you are very close to tripping them on inrush if you fire up all at the same time.

 

[dizzlekush]

any headway on getting a Quantum to test? i have 6 of them myself so im interested in how they compare to the Lumateks

 

[whazzup]

At the time this test was done it was a personal initiative originated from questions on a Dutch forum were I was a moderator. I did not work for Gavita yet, nor were they active in this industry yet as Gavita Holland. Gavita did not have any products voor the hydroponics market at that time, and I just used their facilities. Now we still test these ballasts of course as we want to know where our competitors stand, but we choose not to publish any information about competitors. An exception we made for lamps, as they can not be compared if you do not communicate the same data in the market (micromoles, ppf).

The test we did with the Quantum was not very successful at that time, the EU version available worked on a low frequency and caused a lot of acoustic resonance. The Lumatek already had a much higher frequency when we did the test.

 

[ekomsi]

Whazzup, good news Gavita is comming to my shop in the greater Detriot area, I really want to try one out.

I currently have 10 600W quantum ballasts and I use 600W digilux hps bulbs but they need to be replaced after more then a year.

I remember you had a study on each different brand of bulbs but do not remember which bulb performed the best for a quantum 600W dim-able ballast?

 

[whazzup]

We did not test these lamps on every ballast, we are not going to do all the other manufacturers homework .

The only Quantum we tested showed resonance on some lamps because of the lower frequency. I can not be sure that this is the same type as the US current ones, so that might not be up to date anymore. Though you can ask Quantum what their current output frequency is.

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That was this ballast:
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