What's new
  • Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Is there much difference between double ended HPS bulbs

B

buttonpusher

New member
I have been running a 1000 watt Solis Tek DE ballast and bulb for about 6 weeks now. It is very bright, but the spectrum seems ultra yellow as compared to the Ushio 600 watt SE bulb right next to it.

Wondering if the Phillips or Ushio bulb would be a better choice.

BP
 
V

vostok

Active member
Veteran
Gavitas are double ended and are getting more and more popular ..?

1: no wire frame cage ...so no shadow (is the number one reason)

2: lighter ..not by much

3: better balanced, they fit closer into the unit making it easy to hang flush
 
B

buttonpusher

New member
I went ahead and bought the Ushio bulb. Looking at the components
inside, you could immediately tell compared to the Solis Tek that this bulb was well made. The Solis Tek bulb looked poorly made with "pot metal" components.

After two days of running the Ushio bulb you could see the plants starting to be much happier.

The Ushio bulb was much cooler in temperature. Even at 40" away with a AC/DE air cooled hood, the Solis tek was too hot for the plants to be happy.

I'm no engineer but the Solis Tek bulb appears be using a street light burner inside. I would recommend you stay away from this one as I feel these are over hyped Chinese junk. You can see them on Alibaba website as cheap as 20 bucks apiece.

Love to hear from someone who really knows how these are made.

Aloha
 
E

eighty9concentr

Member
i run similar rooms with ac/de, nanolux de ballast, and ushio super de bulbs. I am getting 15-20% better yield with the de's compare to my old setups of raptors, ggh ballasts, and ushio super hps 1000w bulbs. I love them, definitely have a noticeable difference imo.
 
whatsmells

whatsmells

Member
I am running the same setup as ^^ and I am finding much better yield. The footprint is larger (5x5). I now have the fixture 3' away as 2' was too close. The bulb is much better then the cheap solis that it came with. I tested the color and output.
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
I have relatively low ceilings and I was looking at sealed DE fixtures

If I dim them and run the plants a bit closer can I still gain a benefit?
 
krunchbubble

krunchbubble

Dear Haters, I Have So Much More For You To Be Mad
Veteran
Weird said:
I have relatively low ceilings and I was looking at sealed DE fixtures

If I dim them and run the plants a bit closer can I still gain a benefit?
Click to expand...



Most my friend who run DE, lower the wattage to 750 and still get a higher yield then 1000 hps...

Its my next step, air cooled DE fixtures...
 
Weird

Weird

3rd-Eye Jedi
Veteran
yeah im bouncing on the air cooled gavita hoods and either nanolux or gavita ballasts

i like what you can do with the ballasts on a controller but its a bit more guap
 
Mad Lab

Mad Lab

Member
I've been running gavita DE's for awhile. Like Beta etc said, Phillips with your gavita.

Interesting thing to mention, to add to the advantages of Phillips bulbs with gavita:

I bought 4 gavita DE s from my buddy who bought them 2 years ago. they had the original bulbs. he owns a hydro shop and gave me 4 new bulbs. I set them up and replaced only 2 bulbs.

From the beginning of veg, I kept the gavitas raised high, about 8 feet above canopy and left them there. The plants finished at around 3.5 -4 feet from gavitas.

Heres the cool thing. The two year bulbs appeared just as bright as the new ones (to the human eye anyway) and the side with the old bulbs actually preformed slightly better.

not saying the old bulbs did better, but the plants in the room were s uniform as could be, so they at least did just as well as the new bulbs.

Not replacing an HPS bulb every 5 months or two grows... saves quite a bit, especially if you scale that bigger.
 
Mad Lab

Mad Lab

Member
Also, what weird said.

Getting the e-series DE controller is the best way to go. They dim when the canopy heat raises too high.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Latest posts

Top