Lighting Digital ballast

[Discretepete2676]

Cool, the reason i am asking is because i am currently running 18/6 @600w and it costs me a bomb in electricity. now with the winter months approching i am having issues with cold so my solution would be to compromise with the lighting and run 24 hrs at 400w.

Get a space heater and ink bird or lux pro temperature timer so you don't have temperature swings of more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit between lights on and off. Fungus and mildew love huge fluctuations in temps and humidity. And your fine dimming your light to 400w with a 600w bulb. I wouldn't buy a 400. It's not going to have any effect on you. I work at my local grow shop and I promise you will be ok lol how were you cooling in the summer?

 

[Discretepete2676]

I have a 1000w with a 1000w bulb and galaxy digital logic. And I use the sunset settings to acclimate photo plants since it's the only HID lighting I have

 

[Site]

I have 250W HPS bulb and 250W ballast. Not digital. So I am paying for 500W? I was always thinking that ballast didn't eat that much electricy, maybe max.50W. Isn't ballast just converter?

wont be a total of 500W more like 300W max...the ballast will output 250W to the lamp with some inefficiency probably around 10% at a guess...so realistically the total draw will be around 275W from the wall to power a 250W light...

 

[KonopCh]

wont be a total of 500W more like 300W max...the ballast will output 250W to the lamp with some inefficiency probably around 10% at a guess...so realistically the total draw will be around 275W from the wall to power a 250W light...

Yea that I was thinking. I didn't check electrical bill, but they scared me in posts before.

 

[Nabzter]

Get a space heater and ink bird or lux pro temperature timer so you don't have temperature swings of more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit between lights on and off. Fungus and mildew love huge fluctuations in temps and humidity. And your fine dimming your light to 400w with a 600w bulb. I wouldn't buy a 400. It's not going to have any effect on you. I work at my local grow shop and I promise you will be ok lol how were you cooling in the summer?

During summer the temps are ideal with a 600w where I am and if I'm really struggling I add a fan on the inlet to circulate cooler air faster