Anyone Seen the New Advanced Nutrients "badass" Ballast Yet?

.. my local hydro store owner always hooks me up with this magazine called rosebud whenever i go in.. the other week i went in for a few things, and he gave me the latest issue, and inside is a bunch of ads for an, and in one of them, they are talking about this new digital ballast that they are putting out called the badass..
they say that it is supposed to fix the problems with other digital ballast by running the frequency of the bulbs much lower like how they do with mag ballasts, and it is supposed to improve bulb life, which is a major problem with other e ballasts..

the major downfall of the other digi ballasts from what i've read is that they are running frequencies at a much much higher rate then what the old mag ballasts do, and the higher frequencies cause the bulbs to vibrate at a higher resonance, which in turns causes the bulbs to fail at a much higher rate...
it all sounds good on paper, and i don't know if these ballasts are even out in the market as of yet, but was just wondering if anyone else has seen these ballasts yet and what you think of them..

like all new items to the market, hold your horses a few months and wait for some reviews from the big grow houses and see what they say. Better they spend their money than you spend yours. Learn from them.

Like Jesus said, I would wait till several months after they hit the market to get reviews. They make bulbs that run on a faster cycle, Digilux and Lumatek bulbs to name two.

Gastanker said:

Like Jesus said, I would wait till several months after they hit the market to get reviews. They make bulbs that run on a faster cycle, Digilux and Lumatek bulbs to name two.

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yah, i agree with both of you.. i'm not one that runs out and buys the newest shit that comes out for several reasons.. firstly, if you wait awhile, the price tends to drop a lot, and secondly, there are usually issues that get worked out the longer that things are on the market, and its usually the people who run out and buy the newest crap that end up paying the ultimate price with the learning curve of new products..

and i do have a diglux bulb for my digi ballast, but i was just wondering what others had thought about these new ballasts i guess.. its nice to see that someone is working on fixing some of the problems that other companies are experiencing with their digi's.. i just don't understand why on earth they ever came out with ballasts that ran on such high frequenies to begin with.. seems kinda silly to me, but i'm far from an electrician..

I believe the thought behind upping the frequency was to conserve energy. You are basically taking a slow moving river and forcing all of the water through a narrow pipe - the pressurized water does a bit more work, but at the same time less consistent and less reliable.

Gastanker said:

I believe the thought behind upping the frequency was to conserve energy. You are basically taking a slow moving river and forcing all of the water through a narrow pipe - the pressurized water does a bit more work, but at the same time less consistent and less reliable.

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ahh.. that make sense.. thank you for putting it into terms i can understand, lol..

there junk my local store wont carry them due to many returns!

hellraizer30 said:

there junk my local store wont carry them due to many returns!

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I doubt that. I've only heard of a few cases where anyone even had one of them - they're new and few places carry them yet - so for there to be "many returns" there would have to be a LOT more of them sold than there seems to have been.

I'm actually planning to get one or two of them before long. The science behind the design is sound and it should do everything they say it does. I've never had any problems with anything made by AN before, except one bottle of nutes that had clearly settled out, and that was handled very smoothly so I would expect no less if there was a problem with the ballast. But aside from one guy in this thread, I've heard nothing to suggest anyone has had a problem with one, let alone "many"...

hugetom80s said:

I doubt that. I've only heard of a few cases where anyone even had one of them - they're new and few places carry them yet - so for there to be "many returns" there would have to be a LOT more of them sold than there seems to have been.

I'm actually planning to get one or two of them before long. The science behind the design is sound and it should do everything they say it does. I've never had any problems with anything made by AN before, except one bottle of nutes that had clearly settled out, and that was handled very smoothly so I would expect no less if there was a problem with the ballast. But aside from one guy in this thread, I've heard nothing to suggest anyone has had a problem with one, let alone "many"...

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i'm so glad that you chimed in to this thread m8.. i had also thought that this was a pretty new ballasts and not many people having one of them as of yet... i haven't even heard of one person yet to say that they own one of these, so when this person said that he's heard of lots of return's, it sounded kind of odd to me as well..
and i'm with you, the science behind them sounds solid to me.. i don't know why all of the other digital ballast seem to run at such high frequencies to begin with, but it seems that this is the reason for all of the bulb failures that are common with digi ballasts, so what an is saying and doing with their ballasts sounds like a good thing to me..
thanks for the post..

hugetom80s said:

I doubt that. I've only heard of a few cases where anyone even had one of them - they're new and few places carry them yet - so for there to be "many returns" there would have to be a LOT more of them sold than there seems to have been.

I'm actually planning to get one or two of them before long. The science behind the design is sound and it should do everything they say it does. I've never had any problems with anything made by AN before, except one bottle of nutes that had clearly settled out, and that was handled very smoothly so I would expect no less if there was a problem with the ballast. But aside from one guy in this thread, I've heard nothing to suggest anyone has had a problem with one, let alone "many"...

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Well go ahead and waist your money, 2 of the main shops had them right when they came out and i got to demo
A demo model, compared to other ballasts it was cheap looking and the dial on the front kinda wiggled or was loose.
I personaly watch them box up all of them and return them so good luck

I've had yet to have a problem where my bulbs were dying before I was changing them out from
my galaxy digital ballast. Seems kind of like an unneeded feature if you ask me.

disposition84 said:

I've had yet to have a problem where my bulbs were dying before I was changing them out from
my galaxy digital ballast. Seems kind of like an unneeded feature if you ask me.

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This. If you're waiting for bulbs to actually die before you change them you're doing it wrong. I cycle bulbs every harvest I've only ever had 2 or 3 premature failures but in the grand scheme of things thats like a .1% failure rate if that.

The only thing I like about this is reduced electrical interference but even that wasn't really an issue since proper shielding could solve that problem. They should be spending more time and money on developing ballasts with higher outputs and better cooling solutions so I can run 1 10kw ballast across 10 fixtures and not have to look at a clusterfuck of boxes and cables all day.

hellraizer30 said:

Well go ahead and waist your money, 2 of the main shops had them right when they came out and i got to demo
A demo model, compared to other ballasts it was cheap looking and the dial on the front kinda wiggled or was loose.
I personaly watch them box up all of them and return them so good luck

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You have a first-hand account but you lead with a third-person perspective? That's hard to swallow. If I have personal experience with a product, positive or negative, I don't start out telling people about what someone else has to say about it.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it. No offense.

ExDex1x1 said:

This. If you're waiting for bulbs to actually die before you change them you're doing it wrong. I cycle bulbs every harvest I've only ever had 2 or 3 premature failures but in the grand scheme of things thats like a .1% failure rate if that.

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Not to mention that as bulbs age they get dimmer. That's another huge reason to switch them out before they die. I've heard that after 6-12 months a bulb can lose something like 25% or more of it's actual brightness. You're still burning 1000w of power but only getting 750w worth of light? That sucks.

ExDex1x1 said:

The only thing I like about this is reduced electrical interference but even that wasn't really an issue since proper shielding could solve that problem. They should be spending more time and money on developing ballasts with higher outputs and better cooling solutions so I can run 1 10kw ballast across 10 fixtures and not have to look at a clusterfuck of boxes and cables all day.

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The math on the square wave output says you WILL be getting higher actual output. The less time spent ramping up to the peak voltage, the less time you're not at peak voltage. So a square wave doesn't waste that time between peak positive and peak negative voltage by jumping nearly immediately between the two. They say it is designed to reduce waste heat but until I get one I won't claim to know for sure.

Well third party yess but when that third party is right in front of my face and i see
2 very good shops just up and send them back that enough proof to me that at least
He first shipment to my state was bunk. Like most new products there can be bad
Design flaws and later models have updates to correct it. Take it as you want.

sounds sketchy 2 me

Whatever....!

hugetom80s said:

You have a first-hand account but you lead with a third-person perspective? That's hard to swallow. If I have personal experience with a product, positive or negative, I don't start out telling people about what someone else has to say about it.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it. No offense.



Not to mention that as bulbs age they get dimmer. That's another huge reason to switch them out before they die. I've heard that after 6-12 months a bulb can lose something like 25% or more of it's actual brightness. You're still burning 1000w of power but only getting 750w worth of light? That sucks.



The math on the square wave output says you WILL be getting higher actual output. The less time spent ramping up to the peak voltage, the less time you're not at peak voltage. So a square wave doesn't waste that time between peak positive and peak negative voltage by jumping nearly immediately between the two. They say it is designed to reduce waste heat but until I get one I won't claim to know for sure.

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Hate to admit it, but I work a local shop...

We got those ballasts in... and as far as I can tell... outta the box... made about the same as any other digi... on par w the quantums I used to run. We've yet to sell one... though I primarily run across people trying to save money.

They do make two versions... or so the lit we have shows... a badass that is true digi & the square wave that fires in the 50-60 hertz.... which the quantums also do... so that particular part isn't unique. The higher frequency with which the ballasts juice the bulbs is the problem... Horti changed the mechanical wiring of the bulb to compensate even, but that was a physical design change. The underlying problem w frequency in the digi's is the sodium loss a bulb experiences, which I believe is higher w you dim a bulb... it isn't made to fire that way guys.

A point to note, most bulbs actually appear brighter over a bit of use... even at the end of a year of running. But the actual PAR that the plant can utilize diminishes. Just to note on how the bulb ages... it doesn't really lose 25% of the light. When I ran my test with a PAR meter... I noticed a drop of something like 5% on C&C's and a little lower on the Quantums... but not much. I never dimmed the bulbs however... and that was on Ushios & Hortis... not a one ever failed... 3&3 on side-by-sides, so...

Just some notes... peace. And for the record... I fire C&C by choice... when my own money is on the line.


EDIT... funny thing... I offered to test fire one of those BA's... he said no... ooops...

There's a lot very wrong and very confusing about this.

MIway said:

We got those ballasts in... and as far as I can tell... outta the box... made about the same as any other digi... on par w the quantums I used to run.

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So you're saying that the human eye can't distinguish between the light output of a bulb in a non-side-by-side comparison between different ballasts? Color me shocked. Even if we can't tell the difference side-by-side that doesn't mean anything. I can think of at least two different variables offhand that the human eye CAN'T detect that can make a huge amount of difference to our plants.

MIway said:

They do make two versions... or so the lit we have shows... a badass that is true digi & the square wave that fires in the 50-60 hertz....which the quantums also do... so that particular part isn't unique.

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The quantums do not fire bulbs at 50-60 hertz, and for that matter neither does the Baddass. It's somewhere around 100hz IIRC. Both ballasts are compatible with input voltage (ie what you plug them into) at 50-60 hertz and 110-220v. That's all. The quantums are also not outputting a square wave.

The Baddass is the ONLY low-frequency digital ballast, and the only ballast of any kind outputting a square wave. It is unique.

As far as the two versions you're talking about there's the long narrow one that's about the same size and shape as the quantum. That's the one that I've been talking about (because it actually exists). The other one, the big flat and wide one that looks like a car stereo amplifier, it's not out yet. I dunno if it's a prototype or a future model or what, but it doesn't exist.

I dunno why it's on their website, that's confusing.

MIway said:

The higher frequency with which the ballasts juice the bulbs is the problem... Horti changed the mechanical wiring of the bulb to compensate even, but that was a physical design change. The underlying problem w frequency in the digi's is the sodium loss a bulb experiences, which I believe is higher w you dim a bulb... it isn't made to fire that way guys.

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That's ultimately the reason that the Baddass ballast was designed to output in the 100hz range. It doesn't wear out the bulbs like the other electronic ballasts do because it doesn't set up high frequency vibrations in the bulbs themselves. Magnetic ballasts output at the same frequency as their input (wall) current. All the other electronic ballasts run in the tens of thousands of hertz, some as high as 70,000 hertz.

MIway said:

EDIT... funny thing... I offered to test fire one of those BA's... he said no... ooops...

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He who? This whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense, it's as if you're talking about a story you think you've already shared but not everyone is privy to.