Hortilux SuperHPS: Now for E-ballasts

[whazzup]

it is based on a high frequency resonance. The bandwidth is very high so many frequencies where it can go wrong. I am sure their own ballast will hit the spot. Just always check your lamp for acoustic resonance, it's not that difficult to see.

 

[spurr]

Well...

After reading what whazzup wrote about the Galaxy ballast, I went looking for other E-ballasts and I was thinking about the Lumatek, but I think I will wait for the new Hortilux E-ballast. It should be out by August-September I believe, at earliest. I think I will also go back to Hortilux and get the new 1,000w SuperHPS. I agree with whazzup, that the new Hortilux E-ballast will probably 'hit the sweet spot' of the Hortilux lamp, which would be great; I will try to find out for sure.

 

[prune]

I
Also, Horitlux is coming out with their own brand E-ballast! They are going to show it at the San Fran show in July; it will be for sale before the end of the year. And it will be "ETL Listed", just as good as "UL Listed" (AFAIK); I think this will be the first E-ballast ETL or UL Listed. AFAIK being "Listed" is better than the other designation, if a lamp is "Listed" one can look up the lamp test.

As previously mentioned, Quantum has been UL listed for awhile, Lumatek was forced to quickly earn listing, and it's six-toed cousin the Phantom is also now UL listed. With all the medical states and their requirements, UL listings are necessary to get permit approval.

Although i have never blown a Hortilux on a digital ballast, i have noticed that they have jiggered with the design a few times over the past few years, maybe now they feel it is bulletproof.

 

[prune]

I was told by someone in the business of E-ballast design/manufacture, that many E-ballasts do not provide 100% output, ex., an E-ballast won't drive a 1,000w lamp with 1,000w. I want to know how to test whether the E-ballast I use under-drives the lamp by default (Galaxy select-a-watt).

This topic of under-driving a lamp came up when I asked about over-driving a lamp (e.g., "super lumen" setting), and whether the effect on the SPD would be negative. I was told the effect is often positive, I assume that means greater output within PAR range vs non-super lumens mode. I was also told, some E-ballasts that under-drive a lamp by default will actually be driving a 1,000w with the correct power only in "super lumens" setting, the 'normal' 1,000w setting under-driving the lamp in terms of power.

Without seeing any corroboration for those claims, i would say that they sound just like what i would say, if i was an unscrupulous salesman for a digital ballast company that didn't offer superlumens

I seem to remember one of the european forums testing digital ballasts and affirming the superlumen feature, wasn't it actually more efficient than normal setting?

 

[whazzup]

overdrive is more efficient for many lamps, not for all. I refer you to the table in the Lumatek test. Also you can see that some other (imported chinese) ballasts on the Dutch market did not come to 100% power. Though these suppliers have probably had their factories adjust the output after the test it shows that some ballasts are not well adapted to European or American lamps.

Also what you can read in that table is that new well built electromagnetic ballast (EM) will perform as good as an electronic ballast in "super lumens" setting with some lamps, but at the cost of more power used than the electronic ballast. However....

People seldom have optimal mains voltage, and with voltage variations so will the magnetic ballast vary in output, Also the output maintenance of magnetic ballasts is lower and color maintenance is worse over time. The efficacy of a magnetic ballast can/will deteriorate over time while the electronic ballast will maintain optimal output at any input voltage and prolong lamp life (if no acoustic resonance is present!!!).

Anyways, it i good to seriously study test result and understand what it is you are buying. Output frequency of high frequency electronic ballasts is important and also the manufacturers lamp recommendation. Not all lamps are built alike. Neither are (cheap Chinese) E-ballasts. At current prices that's where they are built. Only suppliers who have good quality control in China and know what they are doing produce good ballasts. And they should be capable of presenting you the output power at various dimming positions. One of the biggest marketing errors Lumatek ever made was putting percentages on their scale which don't match the output and create a lot of confusion.

In a real world many traders are not HID specialists and sell what looks good and has a good margin. They do not drive the development process but buy what is available. The do not have the facilities to actually test the ballast for efficacy and output. With more than 200 manufacturers of electronic ballasts in China who mostly copy designs that's setting you up for a not so optimal product.

 

[couchlockd]

http://www.sznumber.com/en/contact us.asp




this company has been making future brite ballast for the entire time they were available, and also presently.

i run Future brite exclusively , the importer is the local hydro shop, and they give me good luv deal on them, and they have never dissapointed me, or eaten a bulb up.

if they sucked i wouldnt use them, i dot have a quantum, i let my buddy use, as it was the same as the others, and he gave me some cash also.

 

[spurr]

overdrive is more efficient for many lamps, not for all. I refer you to the table in the Lumatek test. Also you can see that some other (imported chinese) ballasts on the Dutch market did not come to 100% power. Though these suppliers have probably had their factories adjust the output after the test it shows that some ballasts are not well adapted to European or American lamps.

Also what you can read in that table is that new well built electromagnetic ballast (EM) will perform as good as an electronic ballast in "super lumens" setting with some lamps, but at the cost of more power used than the electronic ballast. However....

People seldom have optimal mains voltage, and with voltage variations so will the magnetic ballast vary in output, Also the output maintenance of magnetic ballasts is lower and color maintenance is worse over time. The efficacy of a magnetic ballast can/will deteriorate over time while the electronic ballast will maintain optimal output at any input voltage and prolong lamp life (if no acoustic resonance is present!!!).

Anyways, it i good to seriously study test result and understand what it is you are buying. Output frequency of high frequency electronic ballasts is important and also the manufacturers lamp recommendation. Not all lamps are built alike. Neither are (cheap Chinese) E-ballasts. At current prices that's where they are built. Only suppliers who have good quality control in China and know what they are doing produce good ballasts. And they should be capable of presenting you the output power at various dimming positions. One of the biggest marketing errors Lumatek ever made was putting percentages on their scale which don't match the output and create a lot of confusion.

In a real world many traders are not HID specialists and sell what looks good and has a good margin. They do not drive the development process but buy what is available. The do not have the facilities to actually test the ballast for efficacy and output. With more than 200 manufacturers of electronic ballasts in China who mostly copy designs that's setting you up for a not so optimal product.

Good post, informative, thanks

 

[whazzup]

Interesting comparison

 

[spurr]

whazzup,

Since you have access to a U.shpere, would you be willing to test radiance of various lamps and report to the cannabis community your findings? I would be willing to supply you with the lamps, if you could do the testing. That way we can build a large dataset of lamps with their PPF datum. BTW, do you have also access to a good spectroradiometer? (does the U.sphere have a spectroradiometer?)

P.S. I will check out that links in a bit, thanks.

 

[spurr]

Interesting comparison

Thanks for the video link, interesting. I just wish they had used a decent quantum sensor. Because they used a poor quantum sensor (re "quantum response") the results are (quite a lot) less accurate than they could be (if a good quantum sensor was used).

Here is a post I made on this very topic last week, FWIW:

-----------------------------------------------

I've borrowed a friends (greenhouse operator) who has a Quantum Field Scout Dual (both sun and electric) that seemed to work pretty good, tho disappointed with LED readings.

Sorry to say, but the FieldScout is pretty much a waste, its "quantum response"* is far from ideal, it's really quite poor. A quantum sensor should use near the ideal quantum response. The FieldScouts you used used weight green light much higher than blue and red, that means the FieldScout is not much better than a Lux meter; see the figures below.

Because the FieldScout has such poor quantum response any measurements taken with it should not be considered accurate, sorry to say. Esp. if trying to match the irradiance reported in a study where the researchers used a good quantum sensor, like the Li-cor (e.g., re the study on cannabis and PPFD; the quantum sensor I use is the same they used in that study). The same goes for the Apogee quantum sensors.

It makes sense you would be disappointed with LED readings using a FieldScout, considering the quantum response of the sensor is so poor. It gives low weight to blue and red range wavelengths. If you used a good quantum sensor, ex., like what I use, it would give very accurate reading from LED and LED arrays. That is because all photons within all wavelengths within PAR range (400-700 nm) are given nearly equal weight.

* quantum response is the measurement of the quantum sensor per wavelength with respect to the weighting of photons, or not weighting of photons. An ideal quantum response is when all photons from 400-700 nm are given the same weight.


​

Quantum Reponse of all FieldSout models:
http://www.specmeters.com/pdf/3415F Quantum Light Meters.pdf

​

Quantum Response of three of the top quantum sensors, I use "C" (the square line is the ideal quantum response):
http://www.licor.com/env/pdf/light/TechNote126.pdf

​

Leaf Absorbance Spectra (A) vs Action Spectra of Photosynthesis (B) vs Quantum Yield (C) (all of those have been used to weight photons with respect to light measurement relative to the effect on rate of photosynthesis; but only the last should be used, and even it's flawed):
http://www.licor.com/env/pdf/light/TechNote126.pdf

​

Ideal Quantum Response vs Quantum Yield:
http://www.licor.com/env/pdf/light/TechNote126.pdf

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[187020]

My hortilux 600hps hung vert/bare has a white coating inside the bottom of the bulb ... Can the arc tube leak sodium? It's on a lumatek set to super, and it's still bright as hell !! The horti is more blue than the ushio 600 right next to it ...

Peace homies !!

 

[whazzup]

this is what a leaking arc tube looks like

 

[Phillthy]

i use 1000w eye hortilux bulbs exclusively with my lumatek ballasts and have never had an issue at 600, 750 or 1000 watt.

 

[habeeb]

I've used eye blue and burned them out on two occasions. one lasted 2-3 weeks, the other lasted 2 days... I would say I learned my lesson now

now if eye would come out with smaller wattage's

 

[quantic_soul]

After reading what whazzup wrote about the Galaxy ballast, I went looking for other E-ballasts and I was thinking about the Lumatek, but I think I will wait for the new Hortilux E-ballast. It should be out by August-September I believe, at earliest. I think I will also go back to Hortilux and get the new 1,000w SuperHPS. I agree with whazzup, that the new Hortilux E-ballast will probably 'hit the sweet spot' of the Hortilux lamp, which would be great; I will try to find out for sure.

Spurr, based on what is currently available would you have chosen the Lumatek with the new Hortilux SuperHPS bulb?

I am currently looking to get new ballasts and bulbs as my e-ballasts are at least 4 years old made by Future-Brite, a company that is no longer around. I do have a Lumatek ballast as well which is around 2 years old that was never used.

 

[whazzup]

Only by testing lamp/ballast combinations for a long time you can verify that they are compatible. Some incompatibilities such as acoustic resonance and power you can immediately see, but bending wire frames take a while to develop

 

[couchlockd]

i been running a e ballast horti super hps 600 for a few months now, seems good. same out put as the hortilux non e ballast bulb when i first used it. (i test em all second day in at 6 hours on with a hydrofarm light meter)

have i ever burned out a hps bulb from ballast resonance, no i have not. i run future brite ballasts. (importer is local, get em cheap) not one bulb between the 175, 250, 400 and 600 have prematurely failed on me.

only a sunpulse bulb fucked up on me. and a plantmax pulse start 600 halide. (pretty much sunpulse and the plantmax are the same)

 

[Normlfightr]

Good info here

 

[farmari]

Hortilux don't match up well with Quantum ballasts in my experience. Just a heads up to anyone considering the pair. They have done well for me with other ballasts.

 

[greekgardner]

love my micro mole 1000