Hot attic--too hot for remote ballasts?

[THCV]

My ballasts are creating too much heat in one of my rooms. I would ideally like to put them up in my attic. The lights run during the night, but by 10AM the attic was 103 degrees F (in the middle of a heat wave now). Note i vent my lights into the attic, but i also vent the attic itself out the top.

I called sunlight supply and they said that the ballasts should operate fine up in the hot attic, but i should just put a fan on them. The guy said that the ballasts get so damn hot, they will still be much hotter than the ambient air in the attic, so heat transfer will work. He said the worst it will do is shorten the lifespan of the ballasts, which is ok i guess. They are all magnetic.

So I am ready to do it. But I want to check with y'all first to make sure no one has had bad experiences with ballasts in hot attics. Thoughts?

Thanks.

THCV

here's an older pic of how the ballasts are setup now:

 

[yamaha_1fan]

i am no expert but 103 may seem like a sauna to you and me but to a ballast? how hot does your car get in the middle of summer? the lectronics in there survive and i think they are sensitive than a ballast. Like the guy said, the ballast is going to get hotter than that by itself. I would make sure the ballast is on something like plywood and not touching any insulation.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

I've had mine in the attic for years and they're still working fine. It's not uncommon for attics to hit 120f around here in summer...the fan idea is a good one though - it'll help pull the heat off the ballast better.

 

[Don Chocolate]

I have mine located in the crawl space below the house. Where I live I'm sure it gets way too hot in the attic to locate a ballast. The high temps outside get up to 100F.

 

[EZB581]

THCV, I was having heat issues & moved 3,1k ballasts into the attic. I had them up there for about a week. They seemed to worked fine. I measured room temps a week before before & after I moved them. I found very little difference in average room temps. I ended up putting them back where they were. I'm sure your setup is different from mine, but consider doing a before & after temp comparison and see if if there is a big difference. IMHO is better to have the ballast where You can keep an eye on them. I'd like to see how it turns out for you.

 

[THCV]

thanks guys, i'm gonna do it after this cycle. i need to get rid of heat sources as much as possible for "global warming summer 2007"! Sandman, thanks so much for the first-hand exp, sounds like I'll be doing the same thing as you. Yamaha, good point, presumably they have HPS street and security lights in Iraq, and it gets up to 130F there, so yeah, I think the ballasts can take it. EZB, why did you take them back? And Don, below the house is pretty much ideal--the coolest place in the house.

 

[EZB581]

THCV, Sandman gave me the same helpful advice! I moved mine back into the room, the room's closet actually,because I didn't see any real drop in room temps. I just wanted them where I could get to them, just in case. My room is 10 by10. If your room is smaller it could very well make a difference.

 

[THCV]

oh, i see EZ. I have 6 1000w ballasts in one room that has 2 1ks, the other 4 are in another room. So yeah, the 6 ballasts are really adding heat to that smaller room, esp after lights out, it takes forever to cool down completely. I amso psyched to do this and get temp gains that i decided to do it mid-cycle. I'll update yall next week once i am done.

 

[Guest]

sorry to bring this thread up from the dead but, i am wondering the same for putting ballasts in the attic. gets hot here some days 100 plus.
small grow room, small house, cant get the ballast quiet enough to suit me plus i could use the extra space.

so how hot is too hot for ambient and ballasts (mine is digital)?

 

[THCV]

for non-digis, it's fine; i have been doing it for a year. had one fail but hard to say if heat was the issue. just threw a digi up there and it has made it through one bad heat wave so far with no problems. these things were designed to get hot. but i run them at night...

 

[Guest]

not sure if i understood u right but are you saying it is not ok for a digital ballast?

and then you just put one in the attic that was digi?

 

[THCV]

i am saying: i have one year of experience frying magnetic ballasts in the attic, seems to work fine. I have 1 week experience frying a new digi up there, and so far so good, but that's all i can say about digis.

clear?

 

[Guest]

yea thanks thats clear now . lol

well i gues i will just be one week behind you on the digitals in the attic because i guess i am gonna try it.

we'll see who can fry theirs the quickest then.

thanks

 

[THCV]

sounds like a plan! hehe. make sure you have a warranty, and do put a fan on it (i did).

 

[Guest]

yea i got two year warranty.

does your ballast have a built in fan?

just asking because mine does but i am not seeing many of them with built in fans now that i look.

the ballast itself stay super cool, not like some on here saying that they could fry and egg on a 150 ballast.

anyway should i still use another fan since it has one built in?

 

[brie]

I have 6 magnetic ballast in the attic with a fan on them when they are on I run them during the day temps are already in the 90s here never had any problems

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

dude get a fucking attic fan
http://www.google.com/products?q=attic+fan&hl=en
your house is going to blow up on the flir. plus why stress ur equipment.
MOREOVER hot air in the attic heats the walls of the house...the rooms on the inside of thoes walls get hotter...
i have 2 new ones. set at 85F or hotter and my inside temps dropped by atleast 3F
grow room temps droped by 8-9F, thats big.