Rewind:
October 2010
My friends 21 year old son (lets call him Tom), who studies in a non medical state in the USA, sent me a link to 12 ballasts for sale he had come across on his local Craigslist.
The pictures looked good and the seller claimed they were like new and a "left over" from an abandoned project.
The price was attractive - about 2/3 of the price if brand new in the box.
A few emails between my friends son and the seller and they met @ a Walmart parking lot and the seller easily came down another 50 bucks. Tom bought just one.
So far so good.
Tom still living on campus and being the responsible kid he is focused on College and stored the ballast he had bought @ a rented storage facility.
March 2011 he moved to a condo his parents had bought for him.
Still being a single guy he figured he would use his spare closet for a little grow and started setting up things.
When he was ready to go he plugged in the ballast but it was a no go - it did not fire up the bulb.
Tom being an electrical engineer student he opened up the ballast to see if he could see what was wrong (maybe a burned out capacitor or something else easy to spot and fix).
Those of you who have seen a magnetic ballast without the cover on it know there is not much in there.
Tom spotted this about matchbox size container which was wired in to the existing electrical wires within ballast.
Two zip ties were holding it in place and an insulated wire went through the bottom of the base of the ballast and was looped around the base and attached with silicone in a very unsuspicious way.
Tom proceeded to cut out the mentioned little black box and up on closer examination it turned out to be a GPS transmitter.
The ballast he had bought did not fire up because it was wired internally for 220 Volt but Tom had plugged it in to a 110V outlet since it had a 110V plug on it.
Lucky him.
Long story short know the source of your used items or your growing career might end disastrous.
October 2010
My friends 21 year old son (lets call him Tom), who studies in a non medical state in the USA, sent me a link to 12 ballasts for sale he had come across on his local Craigslist.
The pictures looked good and the seller claimed they were like new and a "left over" from an abandoned project.
The price was attractive - about 2/3 of the price if brand new in the box.
A few emails between my friends son and the seller and they met @ a Walmart parking lot and the seller easily came down another 50 bucks. Tom bought just one.
So far so good.
Tom still living on campus and being the responsible kid he is focused on College and stored the ballast he had bought @ a rented storage facility.
March 2011 he moved to a condo his parents had bought for him.
Still being a single guy he figured he would use his spare closet for a little grow and started setting up things.
When he was ready to go he plugged in the ballast but it was a no go - it did not fire up the bulb.
Tom being an electrical engineer student he opened up the ballast to see if he could see what was wrong (maybe a burned out capacitor or something else easy to spot and fix).
Those of you who have seen a magnetic ballast without the cover on it know there is not much in there.
Tom spotted this about matchbox size container which was wired in to the existing electrical wires within ballast.
Two zip ties were holding it in place and an insulated wire went through the bottom of the base of the ballast and was looped around the base and attached with silicone in a very unsuspicious way.
Tom proceeded to cut out the mentioned little black box and up on closer examination it turned out to be a GPS transmitter.
The ballast he had bought did not fire up because it was wired internally for 220 Volt but Tom had plugged it in to a 110V outlet since it had a 110V plug on it.
Lucky him.
Long story short know the source of your used items or your growing career might end disastrous.
