Is there any difference between different Digital Ballasts?

[FlowerFarmer]

i made the jump to digital...got a lil 250 hydrofarm phantom digi...it was touted as being rf interference free....cable company showed up outta the blue one day, and said digital interference was coming from my house, and it was ruining the whole neighborhoods internet service....I would never buy any digital ballast.

The problem is not necessarily the digital ballast...and most now-a-days are shielded from causing interference. Unfortunately the 15ft cordset (antenna) coming off of the thing is where the interference gets out.

Even then.. the issue you had in regards to causing havoc to someone else was because of your wiring in the house. Either a bad ground or not properly terminated cable allows that signal to get out and disrupt the neighborhood. Its not the ballast 100%.... its a wiring issue in the house broadcasting the high frequency signal coming from the digi.


Electronic ballasts provide better performance at a more constant output. They are small, lightweight, have hot restrike protection and what not. A winner in my book.


If you stick to Magnetics..make sure to change your cap occasionally. Digital run circles around Mags with old capacitors.

 

[d3cryption]

what do you guys think about the ipower digital ballasts then? at $250 1x hps bulb, 1x mh bulb, air cooled hood, and dimmable... for a 1k that price is hard to beat... I plan on grabbing that set up . until i have enough to replace that and my mag with 2x gavitas..

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

So are you saying that bulbs last for years? Cuz, they sure as hell don't. Or are you saying it's worth it to buy new bulbs every crop cuz of the loss of lumens? Confusing post to say the least.

I am saying that Mag ballasts degrade the bulb from the start and that after just one crop it is worth replacing your bulbs, we worked out that the drop off was 3x the cost of the bulb. Yes, they might keep an old bulb alive for years, but it will be giving out way less than it first did, for the same 600W of power. Digis also seem a bit brighter and certainly give very good lumens straight away from startup.

Digi Ballasts are meant to give a constant performance from the bulb, but seem to outright kill some bulbs in less time than a Mag ballast. IMO this is irrelevant really light equals yield, if you do the rest right.

 

[nickdiaz209]

Have you used the Growlush Nick? What did you make of it?

I want to run either 3X400's and a 600 or 2X600's and 2X400's.

I have to be careful though cause my breaker keeps cutting out when I have my lights running and the wife tries to vacuum etc, but I head digitals use less power on start up so this may help the situation.

Growlush is rubbish. I'd never buy a digi of theirs but friends have and all reported problems..

Wire it up on another circuit. 4x 600w

 

[nickdiaz209]

Solis tek ballasts look super nice..

 

[whatsupdoc]

what do you guys think about the ipower digital ballasts then? at $250 1x hps bulb, 1x mh bulb, air cooled hood, and dimmable... for a 1k that price is hard to beat... I plan on grabbing that set up . until i have enough to replace that and my mag with 2x gavitas..

I've been running this setup since June 4th. Too soon to tell, but so far, so good. I really like the dimming feature - a handy tool.

 

[Mia]

Just bought two solis tek matrix yesterday.
They are tanks.
Supposedly NO returns in the almost year my local store has been selling them.
"Supposedly" best in the market right now.

I'll never buy another maggie.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

RANCHO,

what color do you use on the sunpulse bulbs?

I remember there being a big talk about one spectrum that made plants yellow... ??? everyone said all the others are ok though..

only thing I don't like about sunpulse is seems cheap, made in China..


thanks for any info

I've been using the reddest one they have - 3k I believe. Whatever the reddest one is. I also run a Solarmax, Digilux, or Lumatek (just one) in each room cuz the SunPulse wont restart if the power flickers. Everything but the SunPulse hotstarts themselves back up. I brought up the China issue with Dan from SunPulse, He told me R&D is expensive if you do it right and thats what I'm paying for and that's done in the Ole US of A.

Haven't seen the science posted up so I'll do my best at what I can gather from what I've read. I'll get the numbers all fucked up but I think I can still get the point across. So lets say your household electricity is 20Hz the old magnetic bulbs operate on this 20Hz...everything is cool. Now you go digital and your bulb needs to operate at like 20,000Hz and this is where things go bad. The bulb basically rattles itself to death. Except SunPulse, the other bulbs that claim they are digital bulbs, just beef up whatever is holding the bulb together. SunPulse bulbs actually operate at the proper frequency or hertz whatever the fuck it is. Old article in High Times, skunk too maybe. Tough for me to describe. You can almost think of the frequency like distortion and lumens as the lyrics to a song. With a distortion of 2 you can hear the lyrics with a distortion of 2,ooo you cant hear shit. Hope this makes some sense...or maybe someone smarter than me can describe this much better.
Peace

 

[Hammerhead]

Here is the data from Solis-Tek. Changing to there gear for this reason is not good enough for me. Using a Solis over any other brand wont improve anything..You will still need to replace your bulbs after a year..I have not had any popping or premature failures..They also speak of Efficiency we all know digi are more efficient the mag ballasts. Mag ballasts are reliable, dependable that can be repaired. Digi are more effeciant run cooler with a much smaller footprint that can not be repaired. If I was in the market for a new digi GAVITA would be my first choice.

Most brand name bulbs are compatible with our ballast. However there is a
huge misconception with standard HID bulbs that run on 50 / 60 hz. These
bulbs were designed for magnetic core and coil ballasts that run on 50 / 60
hz. Now a days the digital ballasts may be compatible with 50 /60 hz but not
optimum (that's why you get lamps popping and premature failure etc), the
bulb should be rated for high or low frequency... which most lamp
manufacturers have not caught on to this yet since digital lighting is still
relatively new.

The only company for lamps that is on key with the digital progression is
SunPulse Lamps, but they only make a Metal Halide lamps.

Good News! We are actually releasing a SolisTek High End DIGITAL lamp
designed for DIGITAL BALLASTS low and high frequency! This will be available
by June 2012. This high end digital lamp will make a matched system with
our solistek digital ballast. Which makes tremendously low THD (total
harmonic distortion) with the efficiency and reliability of core and coil,
on a digital platform!

 

[Kronikal_kiwi]

Thank you everyone, it certainly seems that for the money digital ballasts aren't that great. Im worried about yield. Noise and heat are the least of my issues (I run a 250mm fan, theres no way the ballast noise is louder!).

I will replace my mag's with newer mags though as I've been reading that the ballast itself dims after time.

Thanks for everyones help, I was kinda hoping that digitals would increase my yield but certainly sounds like I was wrong.

 

[Ground Up]

i made the jump to digital...got a lil 250 hydrofarm phantom digi...it was touted as being rf interference free....cable company showed up outta the blue one day, and said digital interference was coming from my house, and it was ruining the whole neighborhoods internet service....I would never buy any digital ballast.

R u serious?? thats crazy!

 

[Tactician]

Digi are more effeciant run cooler with a much smaller footprint that can not be repaired.

They can be repaired. I've serviced about 10 of them in last year. The hard part is removing all the epoxy resin, but it can all be removed in about 5 to 10 minutes. Most of the time, the failure was due to a faulty triac or one of the capacitors.

Anything electronic can be repaired, just need the right testing equipment, a multi-meter and an oscilliscope. By isolating at what stage of the pcb the problem has occurred.

 

[habeeb]

^ interesting,

what line of work to be in the area of someone taking a ballast to you?

also what manufacture are you seeing the most of?

 

[Hammerhead]

It's just not cost effective to have someone remove all of that resin fix what wrong and then re encase it back to resin again. As far as I'm concerned there not repairable.. If it fails within the 5 years I just get a new one free.. After the 5 years it has already paid for itself.. Just buy a new one with another 5 years Warranty..

 

[MrGreenWeed]

Hey there everyone.

I am looking to replace my magnetics's with digital ballasts soon.

There are two major competing hydro companies in our country, and the difference between the ballasts (lumatek, raider, lumlux) in price is a fair bit.

Will there be any difference in reality? Or am I paying for a brand name?

Lumatek are best overall. Best efficiency ratings in the market. It's still all personal preference since most the specs are the same. But don't forget the bulb you use makes a difference to, many overlook this and just go cheap. I use digilux like most the locals where I am. Best color spectrum available. Debatable of course.
5 year warranty, that's all that matters. When 5 years is up, then you can have this discussion again.

Just be sure to keep those magnetics around for backup.

 

[Tactician]

It only takes about five minutes to remove all the resin and you don't need to apply resin again. The resin is applied to keep someone from reverse engineering the pcb and manufacturing them in North America. I've worked as a tech servicing alot of electronic and electrical equipment and it is cost effective to fix these ballasts. I've fixed 5 Lumateks, 2 Quantums, and 3 Nextgens. All 10 of them are working fine and not failed again. I also didn't replace the resin and they're no warmer than they were with the resin. I don't believe in throwing anything in the garbage, especially electronic ballasts when they can be fixed.

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

Here is the data from Solis-Tek. Changing to there gear for this reason is not good enough for me. Using a Solis over any other brand wont improve anything..You will still need to replace your bulbs after a year..I have not had any popping or premature failures..They also speak of Efficiency we all know digi are more efficient the mag ballasts. Mag ballasts are reliable, dependable that can be repaired. Digi are more effeciant run cooler with a much smaller footprint that can not be repaired. If I was in the market for a new digi GAVITA would be my first choice.

Most brand name bulbs are compatible with our ballast. However there is a
huge misconception with standard HID bulbs that run on 50 / 60 hz. These
bulbs were designed for magnetic core and coil ballasts that run on 50 / 60
hz. Now a days the digital ballasts may be compatible with 50 /60 hz but not
optimum (that's why you get lamps popping and premature failure etc), the
bulb should be rated for high or low frequency... which most lamp
manufacturers have not caught on to this yet since digital lighting is still
relatively new.

The only company for lamps that is on key with the digital progression is
SunPulse Lamps, but they only make a Metal Halide lamps.

Good News! We are actually releasing a SolisTek High End DIGITAL lamp
designed for DIGITAL BALLASTS low and high frequency! This will be available
by June 2012. This high end digital lamp will make a matched system with
our solistek digital ballast. Which makes tremendously low THD (total
harmonic distortion) with the efficiency and reliability of core and coil,
on a digital platform!

Would you mind explaining why you would choose a Gavita ballast? Especially since you said choosing a Solis over any other brand won't improve anything. I do remember reading HT or a skunk article about the Gavita system...thought I remembered reading it won't be available in the states. Am I thinking plasma here?? Really just curious as to your "pick".

Another thing I've read is that when our bulbs rattle themselves to death and turn that smoky color they are actually releasing harmful gases. If Solis or Gavita or whoever can make SunPulse bulbs turn back on within an hour after the power flickers I'm sold. I plan on using a light meter within a week or so, after I buy some new bulbs, visually I can tell the SunPulse bulbs are superior, we'll see what the meter says. I also haven't noticed any ill effects on yield or quality even though it's a MH. I grow organically and the thought of my girls having harmful gases being released on them doesn't make me happy.

 

[philcollins]

my phantom ballast was disrupting am radio at thirty feet away.

 

[Buds Bundy]

my phantom ballast was disrupting am radio at thirty feet away.

They will all do it anyone who say theirs don't is full of shit.

 

[d3cryption]

Would you mind explaining why you would choose a Gavita ballast? Especially since you said choosing a Solis over any other brand won't improve anything. I do remember reading HT or a skunk article about the Gavita system...thought I remembered reading it won't be available in the states. Am I thinking plasma here?? Really just curious as to your "pick".

Another thing I've read is that when our bulbs rattle themselves to death and turn that smoky color they are actually releasing harmful gases. If Solis or Gavita or whoever can make SunPulse bulbs turn back on within an hour after the power flickers I'm sold. I plan on using a light meter within a week or so, after I buy some new bulbs, visually I can tell the SunPulse bulbs are superior, we'll see what the meter says. I also haven't noticed any ill effects on yield or quality even though it's a MH. I grow organically and the thought of my girls having harmful gases being released on them doesn't make me happy.

Gavita would be first on my list if I had the money..... But since I don't now, I'm going with a dig setup half the price....... Anywho, you must haven't seen any of the grows with a gavta 600 , 1000de, or plasma? do a search for user anti, wazzup, theherbalizor... and or search gavita.... looks at the logs research, and then you'll know why gavita would be first on his list...... and from what i'm see gavita are about the same price a a lumatek, with a horilux/ushio bulb, and aircooled hood.... and sold in the usa.....