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.
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.
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.
thanks this video answered a lot of questions. Now less nervous.
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
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.
Thanks, is a 600 enough for a 4x4 tent is 1000 too much
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.
Thank you.