Hid light ballast

I’m seeing a lot of ballasts for sale locally. See pic as an example. What ballast can I use with which light are there wiring issues. Are these safe, we wouldn’t want to wake up on fire. Hopefully I’m attaching a pic of one such ballast and can someone explain how they work.

you’ll need @dbrn32 to chime in on this. He’s (or who knows maybe she?) knows most lighting questions.

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Hopefully @dbrn32 sees this and can help.
Thank you

I’ve wondered about that too but not enough to ask cuz I dont have one sorry but I’m interested in anwser

You want to match your ballast wattage to your bulb that you will be using. The ballast
Pictured is for a 1000w bulb. Those ballast are capable of running both Metal halide ( the bulb you want to run during veg as it has more blue spectrum) and High pressure sodium bulbs ( bulb you to run during flower as it has more red spectrum)

Most fixtures (hoods, wing reflector and cool tubes are capable of running 400,600, and 1000 watt bulbs.

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So you change buld with the dialn…can’t dim a 1000 down?

Dimming is not good for HID bulbs it shortens their life span and are less efficient if you do.
That pictured ballast is meant to dim a 1000 watt bulb. It’s not meant to dim it down to use a different wattage bulb
If you have a 1000 watt bulb you get a 1000 watt ballast
600watt bulb - 600 watt ballast
Etc.

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Here’s a good vid explaining

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thanks this video answered a lot of questions. Now less nervous.

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Will a 600 watt mh/hps out perform a mars hydro tsw2000? In a 4x4x80 tent

I’ve used 600w HID in a few grows and I was happy with the results. I can’t say how it would perform against that LED somebody else might chime in whose used one. The HID def throw some heat so if you’re in a tent that’s something you’ll have to consider :v:

This ballast should only be run with 1000 watt bulb. I wouldn’t run over 1000 watt level either unless you were getting ready to replace bulb.

I would run a good horticulture tuned 600 watt hps before the tsw 2000.

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Thanks, is a 600 enough for a 4x4 tent is 1000 too much

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Either is alright. 600 would be good choice if you’re looking to run a more efficient grow. 1000 id you’re looking more to squeeze everything you can out of it. Either way, I would get yourself a large air cooled hood.

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Thank you.

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