The Lumatek challenge!

ok This ballast is very nice! after 2 hours of use it is 83F ! this ballast is ultra quiet. It Exceeds my expectations. the ballast makes the bulb hum quite a bit however this light really rivals my 1k......... I'm literally speechless

Kick ass reportin' abudsmoker. I have 4 of these comin' next week...

bt dt

Top ballast temp 113F

So here is a update, i put this baby up against a 1k mag ballast yesterday was day 30. this 600 is strong but over hyped, the 1k is far far brighter and has outpreformed the 600 digital ballast.

the ballast gets almost as hot as the magnetic, however it is totally silent and looks great. we have aboutt 34 more days to finish this i will check back

good work,and good debate,gotta love it.

abudsmoker, are you really pleased with it? is it worth the extra money in your opinion?

my local light shop gave me a quote of $600 for a 600w lumatek, daystar ac reflector, cordset and a hortilux bulb. is this a decent price? would you rather get a 1000w magnetic ballast package for the same price? i am cautious of new technologies.

i will not be purchasing anything online. so people save your time with the links. cash money baby.

after using this 600 , i have only 2 magnetic ballasts. and i got some serious ballasts.

the real limiting factor is the 1k ballast is 220-240 only. some users dont have 220 in the grow room. My advice buy what you can afford. i am still evaulating the ballast but its neck and neck with the 1k. there is noticably less light from the 600 but good intenisity still.

hmman... that price sucks! A Daystar shouldn't be more than $140..a Horti about $100...and the ballast/cordset shouldn't be more than $200-220 or the guy is gougin ya.

FYI..wholesale costs on the Lumatak is $142.50
on the Hortilux is $60
on the Daystar AC is $95
on the cordset ia $22

so as you can see..he has just a bit more than $300 in it.

hope that helps

bt dt

oh yea lets make 100% profit... my best price on the 600 ballast 212.00

abudsmoker said:

after using this 600 , i have only 2 magnetic ballasts. and i got some serious ballasts.

the real limiting factor is the 1k ballast is 220-240 only. some users dont have 220 in the grow room. My advice buy what you can afford. i am still evaulating the ballast but its neck and neck with the 1k. there is noticably less light from the 600 but good intenisity still.

Click to expand...

So what's the verdict? You've had plenty of time to evaluate it by now.

Specifically -

Does it output more lumens than an equivalent wattage magnetic ballast?
Does it use 10-20% less electricity than a conventional magnetic ballast?

I'm poised on the brink of getting a 250w Lumatek Digital ballast, so any thoughts appreciated.

Good product


Honest oppion

HYPED' up

babygro mind you i have purchased alot of these now, there is a clear advantage i see, but magnetics bulk up as well

i must also say when i burn the 1k lumitek against the 1 k magnetic , wow the digital is much crisper and shows more of the blue you want, plants flowered under this light with enhanced bulbs are 2X greener and bulking up.
This is a girl from the 600 watter @ today she has 11 more days

i havent changed the food, the only difference is i raised the CO2 levels the better ballast has very little yellowing thick robust growth

I've since had an opportunity to play with a Lumatek 600 down at my local hydro shop.
There is no difference at all in luminous output between a 600HPS tube driven by a Lumatek or a magnetic. Tested with a GE Lucalox and a no-name branded Chinese HPS tube. Both 600HPS tubes develop the very same luminous output with either ballast as measured with a lux meter.

The Lumatek 600 draws about 55w less than a magnetic. Whee hoo, 10.9% savings! I guess it all adds up...

Al B. Fuct said:

I've since had an opportunity to play with a Lumatek 600 down at my local hydro shop.
There is no difference at all in luminous output between a 600HPS tube driven by a Lumatek or a magnetic. Tested with a GE Lucalox and a no-name branded Chinese HPS tube. Both 600HPS tubes develop the very same luminous output with either ballast as measured with a lux meter.

The Lumatek 600 draws about 55w less than a magnetic. Whee hoo, 10.9% savings! I guess it all adds up...

Click to expand...

Now take a lux meter reading at 20%, 40% 60% and 80% of rated bulb life and then see the difference in lumen outputs.

babygro, I don't keep an HPS tube long enough to see much degradation of the output. They get changed out every 12 mos per (in my case) GE's recommendation for LucaGrow HPS tubes. I could certainly do the experiment you suggest, but it's bit moot.

Regardless, the output measurements one gets with a magnetic ballast will be identical to that obtained with any electronic ballast. Ballasts are just current limiters, no matter whether that limiting is accomplished with an inductor or a PWM power supply. Electronic ballasts, just like magnetics, ONLY supply current at a certain limit- no more, no less, no magic involved.

Electronic ballasts start the tube a bit more 'softly' but that doesn't appreciably affect the luminous output, certainly not over the course of 12 months service life for HPS tubes as is recommended by most horticultural HPS makers. Softer starting may give more starts per tube life, which means something to a council which runs a few thousand streetlights and needs them to last several years.

buster69 over on OSA inquired of Philips lighting about electronic ballasts and got this reply:

Many thanks for receipt of your enquiry.

There is no output improvement by using EL (electronic) gear for SON lamps. The reason of using EL gear for SON gear in Horticultural is energy saving at gear side and high reliability (EM (electromagnetic) ignitor and capacitor are easily faulted under high temperatures).

Kind regards,

Richard Shepherd
Product Manager - Professional

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If you keep your magnetic ballasts cool, they should last approximately forever. Given that most horticultural lighting systems have remote mounted ballasts, well away from the heat of the HPS tube itself, they do tend to last a very long time.

I have a 400HPS mag ballast which I got 2nd hand, known to be at least 10 yrs old and still in 24/7 service and also a couple of 1000W CW HPS ballasts which are 7 years old, presently in 12/12 service.

Interesting thread but not what my findings are really using 600 watt digitals.I have seen about a $30 a month drop with my 2 600 watt ballasts compared to magnetic. The digis dont have any ballast heat they are actually coooler then the room temp granted Im not using lumetek ballast.I can get the lumetek 600 watt ballasts for under $190 each new but the ballasts I use were only $115 delivered.They is absolutley no hum in my bulbs or ballast absolutly silent all I can here is a faint sound of my light movers motors and fan blowing , turn thos off and its stealth.You can see the spectrum difference like said with the difital ballast as noted before.I did notice that cheapy bulbs can be melted but a decent mid level or better bulb is fine just dont use the $20 600 watt bulbs when on 24 or 18 hours as they will met in a few eeeks of use.I will say that the 600 watt lights are not as intense as my 1000 watt magnetic ballasts but do have a good coverage area with very good penetration.I dont have any 1000 watt digis to look at and my 1000 watters were year old use and only paid about $65 each for them so price is irrelevant but usage costs in the electric bill are quit different. I have yet to get a light meter but plan on borrowing 1 as the ballasts I use are claimed to be overclocked and actuall max a bulb closer to the output of 640 watts when looking at lumnes making close to 10000 lumnes with a standard 90000 lumnes bulb.Overall the silent running , no heat generating ballast and lower using cost compared to 600 watt magnetic ballast along with being cheaper then magnetic and the fact that the digital ballast are built in switchable to run mh bulbs to makes the digital ballasts a better financial investment and great producer..

Since we're going rather in some depth here about 'softer' tube starts, might as well put on my electronic engineer's hat for a minute and describe what I mean.

Magnetic ballasts limit current by the use of a coil of wire around an iron core of a certain inductance. Inductive reactance in AC circuits behaves like a resistance in DC ckts. Reactance is a function of an inductance and a capacitance in a ckt. On startup, before the arc is struck in the HPS tube, the inductor is in ckt with the capacitor built into the ballast unit. When running, the capacitor is the HPS tube.

Several factors contribute to the actual current limit in such a ckt, including the temperature of the HPS tube. When cold, i.e. just after the ignitor hits the tube with a ~4kV pulse to vapourise the mercury in the HPS tube to start conduction, the effective AC resistance of the tube & inductor will
be much lower than while running, briefly allowing about double the amount of current as when operating normally. The current will jump way up but then the reactance of the ckt will pull it down, well below where it should be. The tube momentarily conducts less current but then begins to conduct mroe heavily, This cycle will continue for several cycles of the waveform, each time straying less from the normal operating current. This phenomenon is known as "ringing" and looks a bit like this with an oscilloscope:



An electronic ballast is better at controlling the 'ring' on start, which reduces those few cycles (and we're talking about 3-5 milliseconds here) where the tube is subjected to current beyond the normal level.

FilthyFletch said:

Interesting thread but not what my findings are really using 600 watt digitals.I have seen about a $30 a month drop with my 2 600 watt ballasts compared to magnetic. The digis dont have any ballast heat they are actually coooler then the room temp granted

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Fletch, while I don't doubt your results, I'd like to know what your current draw figures are for the two ballasts. $30 on a month is a quite a lot of kWh at the average ~15c per kWh.

The lower heat production is a very big plus for electronic ballasts- and very important for growers who can't put the ballast outside the room airmass. Magnetics have a lot of loss in eddy currents induced in the inductor's iron core- that's the main place they waste power.

About 10% of the current through a 600 magnetic is lost as heat via eddy currents. I measured 55W less using a Lumatek vs a typical magnetic. A 55W load running 24/7 at 15c per kWh would cost $5.94 per month, twice that ($11.8 for 110W. If your power savings is from your electronic ballasts alone, you should only be saving around $11.88/mo.

You didn't by any chance replace some lights around the house with CFLs or change some other power usage habits about the same time you got the electronic ballasts, did you?

Nope the $30 was using 2 ballast that were digital replaceing the 2 magnetic hydrofarm made ballasts.So basically $15 a month savings give or take a buck from each. I changed all house bulbs to cfl last year.My current power usage is about 2000kw a month using these new ballasts.Bill should drop more next month as I will be coming into the first month of no a/c and pool pumps running and our power company who did a 200% rate increase when thier lock ended has agreed to back down to a 40 % increase and refund money for the huge increased months.