Well it's not all bad news... but here's the thing...
when I bought my lamps (and the rest) I got them from a friend who was storing them for another friend who was leaving the country and so I bought them as a favour sort of so the guy had some extra cash... that was about 3 years ago and the stuff sat in my roof space til very recently..
now, when I bought the kit, I was told it was 2 x 400 watt HPS lamps (and other stuff) and thought no more about it...
anyway, at this time, I have both the lamps set up in my tent but the temps are really hard to control and so I got myself a 250 watt thinking I'd run a total of 650w instead of 800w... so there I am screwing out one of the 400 bulbs (the 250 came without a reflector so I was just gonna swap over the ballast and bulb leaving the reflector in situ... when I noticed... my 400w lamp was carrying a 600watt bulb... now, that's odd, I thought... why would someone run a 600 in a 400 set up, does it last longr or something cuz its running an underated bulb...ok, this is the bit where I need your help - when I set up the kit first time, I decided it would be best to replace the main bulb I was using with a new one (I've no idea how long these others have been run) and so that meant the "old" bulb was in a box and off I went to check it... well that's odd (again) THAT one was a 600 too...hmm...
at this point I thought I'd better check the 400w ballasts to see what they had to say for themselves - I wired them up myself but never really took in the info on them (stoned I guess) and to my utter amazement both ballasts are 600w
so for one thing, this means that I've been running 1000watts in my tent thinking it was 800 but also I've been running a 400w bulb in a 600w ballast for about 3 weeks... how dangerous is that? - I can't touch it right now as its melty hot, but rest assured the original 600watt bulb is going back where it belongs...
what a f*cking doughnut....feel free to laff, I was pissing myself
when I bought my lamps (and the rest) I got them from a friend who was storing them for another friend who was leaving the country and so I bought them as a favour sort of so the guy had some extra cash... that was about 3 years ago and the stuff sat in my roof space til very recently..
now, when I bought the kit, I was told it was 2 x 400 watt HPS lamps (and other stuff) and thought no more about it...
anyway, at this time, I have both the lamps set up in my tent but the temps are really hard to control and so I got myself a 250 watt thinking I'd run a total of 650w instead of 800w... so there I am screwing out one of the 400 bulbs (the 250 came without a reflector so I was just gonna swap over the ballast and bulb leaving the reflector in situ... when I noticed... my 400w lamp was carrying a 600watt bulb... now, that's odd, I thought... why would someone run a 600 in a 400 set up, does it last longr or something cuz its running an underated bulb...ok, this is the bit where I need your help - when I set up the kit first time, I decided it would be best to replace the main bulb I was using with a new one (I've no idea how long these others have been run) and so that meant the "old" bulb was in a box and off I went to check it... well that's odd (again) THAT one was a 600 too...hmm...
at this point I thought I'd better check the 400w ballasts to see what they had to say for themselves - I wired them up myself but never really took in the info on them (stoned I guess) and to my utter amazement both ballasts are 600w
so for one thing, this means that I've been running 1000watts in my tent thinking it was 800 but also I've been running a 400w bulb in a 600w ballast for about 3 weeks... how dangerous is that? - I can't touch it right now as its melty hot, but rest assured the original 600watt bulb is going back where it belongs...
what a f*cking doughnut....feel free to laff, I was pissing myself
but glad you got it figured out :>
That no fires started, that is. 
