Nextgen ballasts false advertising.

[smurfin'herb]

Man oh man, i never thought i would see the day where i have to dis a product from my favorite manufacturer. C.A.P. that is. There nextgen ballasts are nice but do not keep up to par with something like a lumatek. I have done plenty of side by sides to know this. Its nice that they have such a wide voltage range for operation and that they have fans inside of them, i have to admit.
BUT, the nextgen ballasts are NOT FLICKER FREE!!!! I have never run one that didnt flicker. It seems that i have had more problems with nextgens also, but nothing that didnt fix itself eventually. Most of the time, the lights just go out randomly and then restart. This problem has happened with multiple of these ballasts.
I think these would be good ballasts if they were 25% cheaper than a lumatek. But it you have to choose, CHOOSE LUMATEK! Take my word for it.

 

[smurfin'herb]

No input eh? surprises me.

 

[HighTillDeath]

If you ever have problems with CAP Products they have wicked tech help , I've sent back a few products (at their cost) and got new units in a matter of days.

Check out the bulb though because I had a flicker problem and the bulb was messed so it kept trying to ignite the bulb and it wouldnt fire.

 

[HUGE]

i have 2 nextgen and they have been good so far. how do i check for flicker?

 

[HighTillDeath]

I guess I spoke to soon, my 600 next gen stopped working last night. No lights no nothin!, just dead!

Getting a brand new one for free but i'm down a 600 for 2 weeks.

 

[Lazyman]

My local shop tells me they get 10 Lumatek ballasts for every Quantum they sell, Lumatek's quality isn't very good either.

 

[Bad_Replicant]

I have a Nextgen 400/600 that does seem to flicker a bit with my Ushio bulb. I ask my girl if she can tell, and she really can't. I wonder if some people are more sensitive than others?

It doesn't seem to be a problem ibe way or the other, though.

 

[Hackk]

I run only 1000 nextgens. I've only had 2 flicker problems, one of which fixed itself after about 2 weeks which I attribute to the bulb and hasnt happened since, and the other was actually a loose cable in the hood. Overall Im happy with my nextgens, however I plan to switch to either phantom or quantum dimmables very soon

 

[<~Hades~>]

Certain digiz dont work with certain bulbs and some like horti work fine in lumateks and dont work in others....some fire at rates that bulbs weren't madee for and some say it a frequency thing

 

[habeeb]

-I never felt a good vibe looking at the nextgen ballasts..

-I have owned 3 lumateks that worked perfectly fine, I am just using CMH now

 

[Orygun]

Mine don't fire sunmaster mh bulbs worth shit and my shop has already warrantied 2 out of 3 1000s for issues relating to the firing of mh bulbs. When I get more digis I'm taking lazymans advice and getting Quantums.

 

[strictlybongz]

my brand new lumatek 400 wouldnt fire a nib sm mh, sold it to a bud and picked up a core and coil B)

 

[BigTop]

Agreed that CAP has always made good products... for me at least... and they even transferred me to a tech that worked the line... or so it appeared... pretty damn specific customer service when needed.


With that said, agree w Lazy in that my Quantums haven't had a problem yet... over several ballasts... and don't think many Lumatek owners can say the same... or not many of the ones I know.

 

[Classic Seeds]

sorry to here about your ballast problems i have been using the digital green house electric ballasts i got fron high techgarden supply and they are very inexspensive compared to the other brands and they are 3 and 4 years old and have never had a problem but i have a voltage shut off for 15 minutes incase of power loss .that was raising holly hxll with my stuff and line surge or a lightning strike are deadly to without a good surge plug in to your ballast you can get indivdual ones from amazon or your local hardware to plug your ballast into and the timer is a fairly new thing to me its made bycustom automated products in california it has a surge protector built in but you have to hit the reset button to re start in a lightning strike so i plug it into a surge protector so its just a timer now and i do not have to reset it hope i helped someone save some eguipment if you got bad weather like we have in the north west aloha

 

[globel]

I have used many Humbold Wholesale "global Green house" ballast. Everyone in my circle uses these suckers and loves them. If you dont mind missing the dimming function then there the way to go.

Oh and by the way. Dimming the bulb changes the color the bulb emits. so you should stay away from dimming anyways.

 

[elbows19]

I have used many Humbold Wholesale "global Green house" ballast. Everyone in my circle uses these suckers and loves them. If you dont mind missing the dimming function then there the way to go.

Oh and by the way. Dimming the bulb changes the color the bulb emits. so you should stay away from dimming anyways.

and your user name is just "globel" by chance too?