Who Makes the Best Digital Ballast?

People that still run magnetic ballasts are a prefect example of how many people in the growing weed business just listen to other people and can't actually review the information and make their own decisions.

It's an absolute no brained really. More light, less draw, way less heat, no sound and zero degradation over time.

since I now have a lux meter and checked it for myself....i'm a believer.

There is around a 15 degree difference between two of my lumateks though.

Don't really know why. One is running 89f and the other around 104f....strange

Could be to air patterns in the room?

Mine are all around 100 or so.

I mean just the frequency that the light is actually on is soo much higher with a digital. It isn't rocket science. You ever see video of a mag ballast room? All those black bars are actually the light powering and unpowering. That is an over simplification of what's going on but it is the reason why digits ballasts give off more usable light.

I just like them because they are light and quiet. You ever move 20 magnetic ballasts? Not fun

so I put my new bulbs in. lumatek ballast w/hortilux hps 1000 was around 13% higher lux than the magnetic ballast.

legallyflying said:

People that still run magnetic ballasts are a prefect example of how many people in the growing weed business just listen to other people and can't actually review the information and make their own decisions.

It's an absolute no brained really. More light, less draw, way less heat, no sound and zero degradation over time.

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One thing the old coil and core users have is low thd, even the cheapest magnetics have low thd. All digital ballast will have differing amounts of thd.
THD affects the quality of light produced, low thd , no flicker.
Lumatek at one time had over 300% THD according to one company that makes lamps and ballasts ( with almost zero thd).
Lumatek no longer certifies with this lamp/ballast company because well, who wants someone talking about their ballast and how it's thd is insane?
What digitals have is high frequency. Coil and core operate at 60 hertz, digitals up to 67 khz, the higher the frequency the better quality of light produced.

joe macclennan said:

so I put my new bulbs in. lumatek ballast w/hortilux hps 1000 was around 13% higher lux than the magnetic ballast.

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Thats weird, every time I put a hortilux into a digital I get worse lighting than in a magnetic. They were never designed with digital in mind and just don't work as good as newer brands.

superstoner1 said:

Thats weird, every time I put a hortilux into a digital I get worse lighting than in a magnetic. They were never designed with digital in mind and just don't work as good as newer brands.

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the new hortilux bulbs are digital compatible.

I didn't know that, thank you. I will look into them after this multi brand bulb test I am doing.

which brands/sizes are you testing?

All 1k, 2 in digital and one in magnetic. One is ushio, and I can't remember other two without getting off the couch in front of a big fire with 9" of fresh snow outside to go look. I'll check later.

I liked my ushio 600. I like the GE 600 HPS the best. For 1k though, hortis

Off topic

Solis-Tek Matrix........Not even gonna spew out any comparison's. Fact's B fact's! This thread is officially done..Thank's 4 coming, Good nite!

Obama has spoken

mkbinc1971 said:

Solis-Tek Matrix........Not even gonna spew out any comparison's. Fact's B fact's! This thread is officially done..Thank's 4 coming, Good nite!

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because you have no comparisons? and if you have some legit info you should put it up for everyones benefit.
Or you are not competent enough to use a light meter? or amp meter? or ir thermometer?

you're right...facts b facts...... and U B A knucklehead
thanks for playing. do not pass go. do not collect 200 dollars ..

good bye

Solis teks are nice but I haven't really seen them make that much of a difference... And I'm not some "dude" who has 3-4 ballasts. I think I own around 37 ballasts right now. I outfitted the newest room with 18 solisteks. One died in a week and two have harmonic distortion issues....

see, now that's a contributor^^

plus to you sir

I realize this is an old thread but this is what happened to me a couple weeks ago. I have 2 solis tek 1k ballasts and a different brand also, 1k cheap purple ballast.
So i see the cable guy out on the pole in front of our house. I don't think nothing bout it till he leaves and my internet stopped working. I decided to drive up the street to see if i could find him, which I did. He says there is something in my house back feeding through my cable wire causing interference that he can see back in his office. the interference brought him to my neighborhood and then to my house. He said I need to make an appointment to have one a their guys come check their equipment. In the mean time he turned my Internet back on. while he was hooking it back up i asked him if he could check his meter while i unplugged a few things he said sure. I unplugged the cheap ballast and he said there was no change. I said ok and told him I had to go to work. I know my ballasts emit rfi. my house is 40 yards from the road and when i drive up to the house the AM stations drop out and get all noisy.I mean you cant hear the station at all. i replaced the ballasts with magnetic ones 2 days later. The cable guys called me because I hadn't called them yet. I told the guy to come on over. He came over that day hooked up his meters and found no interference.
we use an antenna for tv and could never get one of the local channels to come in until I switched ballasts to mag.
Ive used electronic ballasts for years always knowing they interfered with radio reception but having the cable guy come knockin has me back to magnetic. just somethin to think about.