Should a 600w ballast get real hot?

You have a fan blowing on the ballast..... to cool it. Or don't you count that energy....

You folks tend to over analyze these wiring jobs from what I can tell. We're not talking industrial wiring here, this is penny ante stuff. Worrying about the efficiency of a ballast at 90 degrees as opposed to 75 degrees. Jeesh....


If you need a fan to cool your ballast, you don't have it wired correctly.

Wait a sec, maybe your on to something. The lighting in my kitchen is florescent with kick UP ballasts of 277 V. They have run for ten years now....... is it too late to place fans on all of them? To increase the "efficiency"? Lawdy...

A ballast isn't a computer chip yah know.....

out.

CrackerJax said:

You have a fan blowing on the ballast..... to cool it. Or don't you count that energy....

You folks tend to over analyze these wiring jobs from what I can tell. We're not talking industrial wiring here, this is penny ante stuff. Worrying about the efficiency of a ballast at 90 degrees as opposed to 75 degrees. Jeesh....


If you need a fan to cool your ballast, you don't have it wired correctly.

A ballast isn't a computer chip yah know.....

out.

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OK, OK, now I get what your saying. Makes sense and is a good point. See, my thing is I don't care if I use a little extra juice to cool my ballast, if it means that I don't have to worry about that thing overheating when I ain't around, and It gets me the best performance from it. Let me ask you this, does a 600W ballast, or a 1000W ballast(what I have) use the same juice as a small fan? I'm not askin' to be a wise ass, I'm askin' cuz I don't know. Also, my ballast came pre-wired, and never ran at 90 degrees. That bitch was always hot as hell when it was on, that's why I ended up putting it outside the grow room, and it was wired correctly from the factory. Plus, if a ballast is running INefficiently, in my case, hotter than it needs to, that will also shorten the life of my bulbs as well, no? These ballasts are supposed to send a constant, unfluctuating amount of juice to these fancy MH and HPS bulbs, right? I feel that a ballast that is running cool and NOT baking in it's own heat will be able to produce a more steady current to my bulb. After all, let's face it, the companies that are selling these things sure as hell don't want them to last forever. No money to be made like that. The hotter they run, the better for them. So anything I can do to get some longevity out of my equipment is a worthwhile investment to me, until I'm ready to buy a Digital ballast and I can eliminate the heat issue.....and the fan.

"Wait a sec, maybe your on to something. The lighting in my kitchen is florescent with kick UP ballasts of 277 V. They have run for ten years now....... is it too late to place fans on all of them? To increase the "efficiency"? Lawdy... "

This part you're just being plain old silly about. You can't seriously want to compare a 600W ballast to the ballast on a florescent tube?

i'm using HPS a 1400 W of it.
my ballasts r hot to the point u can't hold ya hand on it - so what - i don't have fans cooling my ballast, i don't have fans cooling my lamps
they had working 2 months on 24 hours and now r in the 3 th week on 12/12. don't have any troubles with em
in my country /well in the past/ we have used HPS for street lights don't think there was a fan in there to cool em LOL
by the way i get mine 250 W HPS from street lights /4 of em and one 400 W philips - and i'm not from the states/ LOL

_____GAME_____ said:

i'm using HPS a 1400 W of it.
my ballasts r hot to the point u can't hold ya hand on it - so what - i don't have fans cooling my ballast, i don't have fans cooling my lamps
they had working 2 months on 24 hours and now r in the 3 th week on 12/12. don't have any troubles with em
in my country /well in the past/ we have used HPS for street lights don't think there was a fan in there to cool em LOL
by the way i get mine 250 W HPS from street lights /4 of em and one 400 W philips - and i'm not from the states/ LOL

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Very proud of ya! Like I said, a ballast that is running that hot will burn out loooooooong before one that is kept cool will. You prolly won't have a problem with it. I never said anyone would have a problem. I did say that they are designed to run hot, and I also did say that any electrical device that is kept cool will outlast, and outperform one that is running hot like yours. Here's another example for ya. My Plasma TV, or any Plasma TV for that matter, has three fans at the top of it. Why? Because those TV's run hot. They run better, AND will last longer, when the heat is drawn out of them. Same thing. Should I disconnect those fans and let the TV run hot because I don't want to waste that energy? The ballast company will be happy to hear that your ballast is running at such a high temperature. Cool it down bro, it'll last longer.

I guess you don't have it in a case. Ballasts themselves are big magnets with windings thru em about maybe 6-7 inches long but the cases they are recommended to inhabit are more like 3/4 cubic foot or so.

this post is for baz and not anyone who wants to argue..

whut up baz glad to see you upgrading from that ghetto christmass tree setup.. fyi, i put my ballast outside my grow room with no fan on it and its been running 12\12 for 2 years now without a problem ive always run ballasts outside all my rooms when possible and never have used a fan on them but i do like to get new equipment every 3 years or so... it just makes me feel better when everything is newer


remember baz you dnt wanna grow them super tall plants under hps bend em top em fim em whatever you wanna do eccept growing a 6 foot plant and you will be happy.. use your light correctly and you will get great yeilds and great buds good luck with your new venture

If it is a digital ballast ,be aware that if the ballast gets too cold it will not fire off. I put one on a cement floor in a shop, and during our real cold spell the lights did not come on, I was pissed because I thought the ballast went bad after a few weeks of use. I put the ballast on the heat mat and after a while it came on. The Lumatek 400 digital does get hot, you can hold it though , I would think the 600 would be even hotter.

tusseltussel said:

this post is for baz and not anyone who wants to argue..

whut up baz glad to see you upgrading from that ghetto christmass tree setup.. fyi, i put my ballast outside my grow room with no fan on it and its been running 12\12 for 2 years now without a problem ive always run ballasts outside all my rooms when possible and never have used a fan on them but i do like to get new equipment every 3 years or so... it just makes me feel better when everything is newer


remember baz you dnt wanna grow them super tall plants under hps bend em top em fim em whatever you wanna do eccept growing a 6 foot plant and you will be happy.. use your light correctly and you will get great yeilds and great buds good luck with your new venture

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Thanks tussle, antman gave me the best advice and that was to stick outside my grow room, prob solved! i only asked this question because i have never used hps and wanted to make sure it was normal and not faulty, didn't want to burn my house down lol

Im growing 9 ak47's all broke the soil today, they wont get tall will they under this light?

Antman said:

Very proud of ya! Like I said, a ballast that is running that hot will burn out loooooooong before one that is kept cool will. You prolly won't have a problem with it. I never said anyone would have a problem. I did say that they are designed to run hot, and I also did say that any electrical device that is kept cool will outlast, and outperform one that is running hot like yours. Here's another example for ya. My Plasma TV, or any Plasma TV for that matter, has three fans at the top of it. Why? Because those TV's run hot. They run better, AND will last longer, when the heat is drawn out of them. Same thing. Should I disconnect those fans and let the TV run hot because I don't want to waste that energy? The ballast company will be happy to hear that your ballast is running at such a high temperature. Cool it down bro, it'll last longer.

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well lookin' at that angle ur right
i'll put some fans on em - don't wanna buy that shit - it's expensive /and the street light now run with CFL so i'll make sure that this ballasts go for longest as possible/

Baz said:

Thanks tussle, antman gave me the best advice and that was to stick outside my grow room, prob solved! i only asked this question because i have never used hps and wanted to make sure it was normal and not faulty, didn't want to burn my house down lol

Im growing 9 ak47's all broke the soil today, they wont get tall will they under this light?

Click to expand...

they will grow tall if you let em. you will want to even up the canopy so all the growing tops are the same distance from the light or you will end up with 1 big cola and several small ones.... it really depends on how you plan to grow em if your doin single cola plants or if your doin a few bigger plants

you know now how a plant grows so you see how the main top can grow like a foot taller than the rest of the branches and thats what you wanna avoid so you will wanna tye down the main top so that all the lower growth can catch up and be just as close to the light as the main top that way you get more big nuggets rather than 1 biggen and a bunch of little stuff, if you got a lot of plants in ther it may be easier to top or fim rather than tie em but either way you want it to look like you could walk accros the even canopy so the light distace is equal at each bud site and that will get you more nuggs per plant...... get it

now im no expert on ak47 i dnt grow autoflowerers so im not sure of the growth patern of them but i imagin they grow just like every other plant just autoflowering instead of being switched to 12\12

I may have come across as argumentative, and I apologize. I'm just trying to make a point to keep it simple. As simple as possible, unless you want to ghetto up your grow op . All ballasts are designed to handle the heat. In the end your biggest expense over the long haul will be your lights and electric bill, not the ballasts.... imho anyways.

Like an english comp....keep it simple and to the point. heck you can even have an arc in both if you wish


out.

Ok if anyone is interested i have just loaded the new pics of my new room, click the suparoom link, 2nd grow journal