electronic vs magnetic ballast -- lux/par output

Hello,


I know this has been discussed here and there , but I wanted to share my observations and see what other had to say.



Recently I noticed an area in my room was consistently underperforming compared to the rest of the room. Regardless of new bulbs, more fans etc. Plants in that area consistently stretched out much more than the rest of the room. I decided to test w/ a light meter. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1PK0KC4987


( i have this one ^^).


I found that the lights being powered by my light energy magnetic ballasts were outputting 55000 lux at 18". Meanwhile my powerbox and solis tek digital ballasts are outputting at 85000-100000 lux. that is quite a bit more . They are all less than 1 yr old. I don't think I will buy magnetic ballasts again. Any thoughts?

Growers house has done tests with the same hps bulb, and the digitals outperform the mags.

I quit using mags and have been happy with my silent gavitas. They work as advertised far as ive seen. I get better yields now using 600 hps in digital vs 1000 hps with mags. Part is experience but i think the lights help.

Btw you can buy things now from nanolux that catch the rfi, its possible to have full length cords with them without bugging shit out nearby.

I cant find any advantage to owning mags anymore except they last forever and are easy to rebuild. I dont care though ill take the better quality lights and toss the ballasts when they bust

According to hydro shop, the rage is old mag MH, and running those weird looking 860 watt ceramic bulbs. Apparently awesome yields. Pricey bulbs though, but longer life. Don't know if it's lux or spectrum.

zizration said:

Hello,


I know this has been discussed here and there , but I wanted to share my observations and see what other had to say.



Recently I noticed an area in my room was consistently underperforming compared to the rest of the room. Regardless of new bulbs, more fans etc. Plants in that area consistently stretched out much more than the rest of the room. I decided to test w/ a light meter. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1PK0KC4987


( i have this one ^^).


I found that the lights being powered by my light energy magnetic ballasts were outputting 55000 lux at 18". Meanwhile my powerbox and solis tek digital ballasts are outputting at 85000-100000 lux. that is quite a bit more . They are all less than 1 yr old. I don't think I will buy magnetic ballasts again. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

its obvious you have an under performing mag ballast it don't mean all mag ballasts under perform, you are correct to test with a lux meter, in time you may be surprised to note the mag ballast will easily out run the digital but the short term is the digital is the winner

cheers/

I heard the opposite about the 860's..

My digi's do a bit more lux than my mag ballasts, not a big difference like you're seeing. Sounds like it needs a new capacitor

I did some testing on CMH, the digitals were 77 Hz square wave versus 60 Hz sine wave for the magnetics.
Two GE bulbs and a Philips bulb were tested on both ballasts with an average of ten percent less umols from the magnetic ballast using the same bulb. GE also had a two percent advantage over Philips, but with a single bulb being sampled it is well within the margin of error.

I also use an ultra high frequency ballast (Solis Tek) but will not put the bulb in a low frequency magnetic ballast, it is designed for high frequency.

I have a few of the magnetic ballasts good to go in a cupboard, they came in really handy restarting the garden after heart surgery. As they say, it's all good, some is just better. Very few (3) magnetic ballasts still in action compared to those put back (6) in storage.

I will only run digitals, I just recently gave all my magnetic ballasts away to some co-workers.

I have rently started wearing sunglasses in my rooms because I am going vertical bare bulb and the light shines right in your face anyways I have notice when looking at the walls with my sunglasses on I can see the light intensity go up and down, I never noticed this before. I run 2 1000 w hps and 1 1000 w mh all magnetic ballasts. I notice this light intensity variation the most with my oldest lights, I have 2 magnetics that I have been running since 2002, the other light is from 2015 and it seems like there is less variation. Yes magnetics run a long time I am the proof 15 years still running plus they run with relays so the got alot of abuse id like to see a solis tek or lumatek do that lmao. You can sort of see it when you take a picture with your grow lights on, with magnetics you see your screen shot separated in different rectangle's constantly moving up and with digital ballasts you see it alot less. The difference between the magnetics and the digital is the output, magnetics send a sinus shaped wave to the bulb and the digitals send a high frequency sinus wave or a square wave which is at a positive peak for longer periods..alternative current has 60 positive and negative cycles per second ex 60 hz.. When the alternative current is on the negative side it is not sending electricity but since this happens so quickly you don't see it with your eyes so with an electronic you send a signal that is making your bulb light slightly brighter for longer periods so at the end of the day your plants get a longer and higher amount of light with electronic lights. I will be upgrading to Gavitas pro de 600/750 as soon as I can mostly because the master controller option.

The capacitor is crucial to full output w/ mag ballasts. It corrects the power factor. Fortunately there's a diagnostic tool for that-

https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Ele...id=1486525970&sr=8-1&keywords=killawatt+meter

If the power factor isn't .90+ you need a new capacitor. The info is generally printed on the capacitor itself.

Of course you know, HPS and MH lamps actually turn ON and OFF 120 times per second. Visualize the 60 Hertz sine wave...at the midpoint the lamp turns OFF for a millisecond or so (0 volts) and turns ON at the sine wave's "peaks and valleys" (400 volts). This little tidbit is true for BOTH digital and mag/cap ballasts....assuming both are 60 Hertz devices.

I am migrating to mag/cap ballasts...I too have seen digital ballasts degrade rather fast and a few (Quantum) caused nasty RFI issues that my portable AM radio easily picked up while standing about 20 feet away from my property line. YIKES!

Of course replacing lamps every 3-4 months does wonders to maintain a higher rate of lumens...and is rather affordable at 1000bulbs.com, they have the best prices and great customer service.

that kill a watt device looks pretty good.i opened one of my light energy ballasts yday. i wanted to inspect the capacitor. Visually it looked fine. There was no bulging of any kind that I could see. The ignitor unit had a sticker on it that said that the distance between the ballast and bulb should not exceed 25 ft. I was thinkn that sticker should be on the outside of this box. At any rate, maybe that contributed as my cord length on a couple lamps is over 25 ft. I m going to replace a couple w solis tek ballasts and see what happens. thnx for responses everybody..

zizration said:

that kill a watt device looks pretty good.i opened one of my light energy ballasts yday. i wanted to inspect the capacitor. Visually it looked fine. There was no bulging of any kind that I could see. The ignitor unit had a sticker on it that said that the distance between the ballast and bulb should not exceed 25 ft. I was thinkn that sticker should be on the outside of this box. At any rate, maybe that contributed as my cord length on a couple lamps is over 25 ft. I m going to replace a couple w solis tek ballasts and see what happens. thnx for responses everybody..

Click to expand...

That ignitor rating only has to do with the ignition charge. That wont have to do with the lower output. If the cord was totally too long it wouldnt spark up.

The sticker inside is thermal rated. Its fine there. It should be marked outside but the assumption is you have that info from the box. They dont give much thought to if things are second hand.

If you go solis tek use their lamps with their ballasts...

Fact of the matter is mags are less efficient. Its proven. The mag guys will say no but its been shown countless times with new ballasts amd the same bulb the mags are inferior. They have some nice features but overall the problems like RFI have been fixed you can buy rfi things that catch it instead of broadcast it.

Lol everyone rants on about a faraday cage. Waste of time. Get the rfi splitter thing. Nanolux sells.

FYI nanolux has some really great stuff. If you have bank for solis tek, look at nanolux. Good stuff

Mags are somewhat less efficient but they have advantages. They're easy to understand, test & fix w/ basic tools. They're not just disposable like electronic ballasts. they're passively cooled (no cheapo muffin fans to crap out) & won't die from sucking in dust. They're industrial grade, for the most part, the guts being designed to be taken for granted atop a streetlight pole or up in a commercial highbay fixture. They'll also run appropriate high efficiency CMH lamps, as well.

I have a 1000 w hps and a 1000 w mh both magnetics that I purchased in 2002, they are both working well, changed the igniterr on hps one. I'd like to see a digital put out 15 years of production... Not gonna happen. But yes even though I'm running mags digitals will outperform mags by 20 % or more.And yes like stated above each brand of igniter has a max striking distance, the ones I use are good for 50 feet but some only make it to 16 feet.. I see this question being asked all the time by newbs or electrically ignorant growers, there should be a thread in sticky section showing people pictures of what a sinus wave is and how alternative current frequency works. People would understand better how mags and digis have a different output signal to the bulb... It's like comparing a single phase motor to a 3 phase motor or dc motor, alternative current varies between positive and negative 60 times per second and when it's on negative side it's not sending any electricity, with dc your getting nothing but a stable amount of positive so its always sending electricity and with 3 phases your also working with alternative current but instead of having a single sinus wave you have 3 and they are slightly dephased from one another so that each waves peak is going to your load at a slight intervals so your load is always getting some positive it's hard to explain would be better with a graph.

that 20% of extra oooom pa pa makes me quite happy.. hydro is pricey. i want all the lumens i am paying for. my solis teks should be at the shop today. they open at 10. coffee and bubble in my future i see...

I had a solistek 1000 first month timer went crazy then it melted inside think i got it from mbferts and they were like out of replacements they said I would have to send to bum fuck wherever they are made... so the warranty was a pain so i threw it out and drug back out the old Mag 1000 that was and has been working forever. Then I heard about all this trackable emi ballast shit. I also had an early humboldt county micromole 600 i used for years until i read the emi pollution crap and got scared. neighbors all had dish so I wasnt too worried but now there all on cable and all the reports seem to list it to be a cable tv destroyer then I tried mars leds they slow as shit plants droopy shitty looking spots form fast no matter what I seem to do. Rebuilt them with citizen cobs and new heat sinks running in the mars cases. I retrofitted 2 each with 4 36v citizen gen 5 4000k and one with gen 6 5600k so 8 36 volt cobs still look like crap droopy pale green starts fast twisted shitty growth is all I got tried different distance number of lights cal mag whatever not worth the trouble. But that micromole has never failed bought it early in 08 or 09 I think. Sometimes dimmed to 400 sometimes full 600 even with an ancient bulb it destroys any type of led i tried i don't get it. i swear next day droopy lime green turning plants are praising the Mtal halide gods... but scared of the emi or rfi whatever thing the reviews of the nanolux and revolution emi blockers say they suck read reviews on amazon. And I read the micrmoles were the worst offenders.Think they were early gavitas have same upside down gauge that pretty much gavitas only have. look just like em. But it is solid and unkillable so far. Had to give that up though sucks my back is so fucked but random all the time so fuck it. maybe some day I can fire it back up also they are made in japan maybe why they last forever compared to these other chinese ballast so I say gavita is the best that i have tried. Looks exactly like this only doesnt say that digistar stuff.

no doubt from what I heard digital outperforms mag, still not sure on the RF emission thing but I am many hundreds of feet from each neighbor and no confirmable problem yet. Lux is def superior but don't know what par is but think better in both ways... don't have hard data on yields before and after my switch to digital, but it seems the results are better def no worse. That was a whole lot of useless wasn't it, didn't mean it to be, sorry!

Those Nanolux RF filters get bad reviews on Amazon. If they worked so well, other companies would have them out by now I figure.