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Do electronic ballast still interfere with wifi/internet ? ??

Bobby Boucher

Active member
I would assume that there are a loot of variables in play. Different wiring types and configurations, distance between light fixtures and breakers/coax wires and terminals, house size, population density.. too many for me to know.

End of the day, I would bet that there's just no telling what kind of interference you are putting off without the proper tools. Pretty sure the cable guys are using proper rf spectrum analyzers and not walking around with AM radios to detect the source and strength of the interference. My am radio played fine 10-15' from the ballasts.

Could always order a nice spectrum analyzer on amazon and return it to kohls once you are done with it, and probably should if you run e-ballasts and don't want the cable company showing up with a sheriff..

I should mention that I don't know what tools the field techs actually carry, or if an AM radio test is satisfactory in every other case but my own. My house had a TON of coax running all over the place, along with old redundant phone wires, doorbell cables, etc..
 

wvkindbud38

Elite Growers Club
Veteran
I would assume that there are a loot of variables in play. Different wiring types and configurations, distance between light fixtures and breakers/coax wires and terminals, house size, population density.. too many for me to know.

End of the day, I would bet that there's just no telling what kind of interference you are putting off without the proper tools. Pretty sure the cable guys are using proper rf spectrum analyzers and not walking around with AM radios to detect the source and strength of the interference. My am radio played fine 10-15' from the ballasts.

Could always order a nice spectrum analyzer on amazon and return it to kohls once you are done with it, and probably should if you run e-ballasts and don't want the cable company showing up with a sheriff..

I should mention that I don't know what tools the field techs actually carry, or if an AM radio test is satisfactory in every other case but my own. My house had a TON of coax running all over the place, along with old redundant phone wires, doorbell cables, etc..


Yes there's a ton of reasons like you listed that some guys might not have interference and some would. The electronic ballast are great it's just sad this issue still exists.:tiphat:
 

Raho

Active member
Veteran
Forget about the electronic ballast itself. the cord between the ballast and the bulb, even the bulb itself is nothing but a giant antenna blasting out at the high frequency of the ballast.
I have very good hearing and actually hear the high pitched whine of the frequency coming from the lamps. When you tune the freq in on AM radio, it is exactly that frequency I can hear with my own ears.
People with "normal" hearing in the same room can't hear it when I describe it to them.
Wifi hell. I tried to run unshielded CAT5 network cable near the lamp cords and the interference was so strong I couldn't make a connection over 15 feet of wire between my sensors in the room and the PC I was trying to use to log environment data.
Best thing you can do is run the shortest lamp cord you can, shield the whole room where the bulbs and ballasts are, and put an RF choke on the power cord coming from the wall to the ballast to keep the RFI from going back down the power line.

Prodex insulation has 2 layers of aluminum on it. If you line the room with 2 layers of that stuff, you'd make a BIG dent in the amount of RF that got out.
https://www.insulation4less.com/default.aspx

Keep the wifi router as far away from the grow room as you can.
disconnect any TV coax that goes into that room if it connects back to a main video distribution box.

These things are pushing a lot of power through those wires, and no around of RF choking is gonna block it completely.
The best you can do is minimize/isolate it.
 

Raho

Active member
Veteran
I haven't run them, but CMH uses a low frequency square wave ballast and might be a big improvement, both in RF (over electronic ballast) and light spectrum (over HPS/MH)

If you are starting from scratch, you might want to consider them.
630 DE maybe?
 

Elmer Bud

Genotype Sex Worker AKA strain whore
Veteran
G `day raho

What brand of ballast ?
Do you think they might cause more interference on 120 V ? In Oz we run 240 V .

I have 2 Lumatech digital ballasts . 1st generation were noisy and interfered with Pay TV . As evidenced on forums .
2nd gen remedied this .

I have mobile wifi no interference .

Thanks for sharin

EB .
 

wvkindbud38

Elite Growers Club
Veteran
Yes I'm gonna just go with magnetics,,...they gave me great service for 20yrs almost so I'm gonna scratch the electronic ballast thought. Probably just get a 1000 switchable, that'll do what I'm planning. If I can't plug in the electronic ballast and not have internet problems I can't have them. I'm not wanting to do a bunch of shit to use these E ballast. If I can't plug and grow with no internet issue it's a NO lol. I feel if it's a possibility the e ballast will mess the internet up it's a definately NO
 

green404

Member
I just ran a wifi speedtest with newer Lumatech digital and Galaxy digital off and on did not have any interference or reduced signal.
 

wvkindbud38

Elite Growers Club
Veteran
I just ran a wifi speedtest with newer Lumatech digital and Galaxy digital off and on did not have any interference or reduced signal.


I was kinda looking into the cheaper e-ballast. Because I can get a magnetic setup for $150 or so....same as the cheaper e-ballast setup. This is kinda a mom room and light setup I was gonna use to get plants ready to put outdoors next yr. I might grow a few plants under it. But I'm looking for a cheap set/up. I'm not in a secure enough location to put a lot of money into a indoor setup like I had yrs ago.
Thanks
 

Raho

Active member
Veteran
G `day raho

What brand of ballast ?
Do you think they might cause more interference on 120 V ? In Oz we run 240 V .

I have 2 Lumatech digital ballasts . 1st generation were noisy and interfered with Pay TV . As evidenced on forums .
2nd gen remedied this .

I have mobile wifi no interference .

Thanks for sharin

EB .

Quantum, Galaxy and Digilume running on 220.
It's the high frequency the signal is running at. Makes the whole thing sing
I had the best lamp cords you can buy (upgraded to 20 footers to keep ballasts in a lung room). None of them are shielded.

Can't remember, what is it, 600 hertz?

I can see how radio interference between 2 wireless devices could be selective. If you are not transmitting on the same frequency they are sending/receiving on, all could be OK. Doesn't matter if the air around it is filled with RF.

When you have a device connected to a wire, there is limited capacity on that wire for data. If you flood the wire with noise, your desired signal has no room to send it's packets.
With a wifi router connect by wire to an ISP, basically you flood the line with noise, nothing ever leaves the house except noise.

That's about 80% theory mind you. Make any sense?
 

Klompen

Active member
The Chinese have a very bad habit of just not bothering to connect the ground wire to anything. You should really check out Bigclivedotcom on Youtube to see what I mean. He takes apart Chinese stuff all the time and the grounding is almost never done properly. In fact, there's a few designs that he has looked at that will outright kill you if you were to hold them wrong. He looked at one battery-powered night light with mains charging built in to it and if you held two specific parts of it while it was charging you would probably die. Chinese stuff CAN be great, don't get me wrong, but its very much worth looking it over to be sure.

Its pretty easy to build a tiny Faraday Cage that goes over your ballast though. Comically easy.
 

Elephunk

Member
The Chinese have a very bad habit of just not bothering to connect the ground wire to anything. You should really check out Bigclivedotcom on Youtube to see what I mean. He takes apart Chinese stuff all the time and the grounding is almost never done properly. In fact, there's a few designs that he has looked at that will outright kill you if you were to hold them wrong. He looked at one battery-powered night light with mains charging built in to it and if you held two specific parts of it while it was charging you would probably die. Chinese stuff CAN be great, don't get me wrong, but its very much worth looking it over to be sure.

Its pretty easy to build a tiny Faraday Cage that goes over your ballast though. Comically easy.


Been thinking this for a long time when I first started reading about this in 07.

You can buy a roll of copper screen easy enough.

Always wondered if shielding the room like that would just entirely eliminate any leaks.

The scene from Enemy of the State sparked the idea.

So to what you're saying, build a small one for just the ballast.

As for the cord, there is shielded cord you can buy. Pretty sure it's posted on one of these pages.
 

Cvh

Well-known member
Supermod
I run digital lumatek ballast and they don't intefere with my wifi.
I'm standing now next to my ballast with my cellphone connected with my router.
 

Frogger

Active member
I would strongly recommend against using electronic ballasts unless you are growing in a legal climate.

I passed the AM radio test, but.. after a year of just snipping my coax line to avoid confrontation, over and over and over, the cable guy eventually came banging on my door to tell me he knew exactly what I was doing, and that I was disrupting over 600 people with a 600w ballast. He was cool as f*ck and told me to shut down shop immediately before the field techs came to look for "wiring problems" with a sheriff, and also to switch to satellite, altogether.

If you insist on using electronic ballasts, I would first make sure that they aren't made in china. I doubt you'll find a chinese made e-ballast that passes fcc rfi standards. I would then shorten the leads from the ballasts to the hoods as much as humanly possible, probably even mounting the ballasts to the hoods, gavita style, and equip the leads with rfi ferrules. I would then make sure i didn't have any redundant wiring anywhere in my house, and also make sure that my light fixtures were nowhere near any coax, preferably even pulling all the coax out of my house in favor of fiberoptic or satellite.

Or.. just stick to magnetics. :tiphat:
Thanks for the heads up on that
 

Iamnumber

Active member
Related question..


What can I do with modest budget to minimize the RISK / AMOUNT of disturbance from my digital ballast to MAINS network ??


so .. not about wifi or mobile phonse.. about the electric network.


We use remotely read electricity meters and company reads them through the same wire that transfers the electricity. There has been reports that some digital ballasts produce interference or noice that fucks up the data transfer (which in turns brings the utility company service guy to the door - which I would like to avoid)


Ferrite rings to ballast mains power cord is the only thing that I can think of but I do not know it it helps and to what degree.. any other recommendations?
 
F

Freedom45

I run 23 in a residential house and have never had problems with any signals over the last 5 years.
 
F

Freedom45

Related question..


What can I do with modest budget to minimize the RISK / AMOUNT of disturbance from my digital ballast to MAINS network ??


so .. not about wifi or mobile phonse.. about the electric network.


We use remotely read electricity meters and company reads them through the same wire that transfers the electricity. There has been reports that some digital ballasts produce interference or noice that fucks up the data transfer (which in turns brings the utility company service guy to the door - which I would like to avoid)


Ferrite rings to ballast mains power cord is the only thing that I can think of but I do not know it it helps and to what degree.. any other recommendations?

Through the same wire that transfers the electricity ?

Seriously

let’s not be silly.

Santa doesn’t exist and electric cables don’t send a super secret signal back to the electric company via the supply. Chem trails aren’t real and lizard overlords are a bit of a stretch.

I’d advise buying one, turning it on and not worrying about the ‘type’ of electric that’s in the air.

Lighten up dude, seriously
 

Iamnumber

Active member
Through the same wire that transfers the electricity ?

Seriously

let’s not be silly.
Yes, Seriously. Standard here..



It is public knowledge that this is done. Specs are not easily available.
I googled few wikipedia pages about it but they are not in english .. try googling "smart grid" if you are interested or poke me about the local pages if you wish to play with google translate ..
 
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