best 400watt bulb?

donjuan417

Active Member
I believe you do get the actual 430 watts. Because an average 400 watt hps ballast will actually induce about 438 watts of power. It is just the bulb only draws 400 watts so the ballast is only producing 400 watts to the bulb, thus delivering the extra 38 watts to heat and your power bill. If a bulb were to be capable of 430 watts then the ballast would be used to more of its potential and run a little cooler because an extra 30 watts is getting introduced into the bulb and not the electrical components in the ballast. I checked with my hand a few minutes ago and my ballast is running a little cooler than it was a couple days ago with the regular lu400 bulb. This is only what i believe, but i could be wrong. So dont hound me for my 2 cents. Also my agrosun is rated at 58000 lumens. The reason the lumens are lower in the sun agro is because it has a wider spectrum than the hortilux (it has more blue spectrum). My agrosun has very little blue spectrum and is rated more for its red spectrum, but still has a little bit of blue. I just realized i probably just confused the hell out of everyone.
caseyg2007 is right on the money, he knows his stuff. I have grown with a 400w hortilux hps and a 430w son agro hps. I don't use MH at all and never have and still get consistent great results. Even though the 400w has more lumens, the 430w more than makes up for the difference due to the broader spectrum of light. I get more dry weight with the 430w using clones, so it's all the same genetics and all grown in the same conditions, with the same nutes, so IMHO it's definitely the better light. As to how the bulb works in the ballast, the lady at my local hydro store said that I could put a 400w bulb in my 430w hps ballast and it would not be a problem, but if it was a 400w ballast you could use a 430w bulb, but it's not really a very good idea, as a 400w hps ballast was not built for 430w bulbs.
 
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