Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH)

[simba]

Weak ignitor. The CMH takes a bit more of a kick to fire than the HPS.

There could be a weak link there. Like a non KV/pulse 600v rated switch.

I totaly Agree.. Most of the Ballasts skimp out on ignitors and caps.. (as there short distance (lamp to ballast) and the MFR is Cheap Bastards.
My Cap i have Recently (last week) Gone Back to Oil Caps and a Higher Temp rated Ignitor.. (on my Demo Ballast, As it gets a full life cycle in a short amount of time)

CMH needs a KICK and then some.. to start up..
Ignitors are always my first Suspect when a CMH Retro-White wont Fire. 2nd is bad bulb (if its new or near new)

That High Voltage Starting Pulse is extremely susceptible to any thing that adds resistance.. IE a non KV rated switch or a Cheapo Ignitor at a longer than normal distance (IE us with remote ballasted)
also i will say u can get away with cheaper ignitor at longer distances when using 220V..
(some other issues pop up but u get the idea)
i can use a 400HPS ballast to power some 600 HPS lamps if and only if i tap it to 220v on 120v PITA)


When u watch a HPS fire up its starts Instant 1 from power on.. cmh takes 1-45 seconds to pulse up and then it goes threw the motions of warming up (changes color and "brightness" goes back and forth kinda jumpy)

as far as it having lighting (its arcing) just not enough Uhmph Probably to Fully Heat up the gases and Truly Ignite or it could have leaked the Gases and just arcing but i doubt that.. its hard for it to arc without any gases and salts.

Ya mosthigh, Sucks ur bulb blew..
i duno who u got it threw but some companies have Advanced Returns (new ships out while ur bunk one is on way back) You may have to jump threw some Very small hoops but its worth 5 days less down time..



ya id like to see some more data on that.. green
however from my experience i found its the Ratio of blue to red.. to Force Final Ripening and Final Fluffing..
my thoughts are if you give to much blue to red or no red at that point it gets confused as its looking for a higher blue to red (ie fall winter) but still wanting the red that was there just more blue..
you don't want to grow new buds as they take away from overall potency.. and only adds a lil yield im for quality without loosing quantity (IMPHO)
thats why i don't like flowering boosters for late that supposedly add more flower sites..

 

[FreezerBoy]

11 hour blackout yesterday. Power came back and bulb was fine. Turned it off, removed reflector to work on cab. Reinstalled reflector. lit for a second and blinked out.



Did I blow the bulb or should I be troubleshooting the ballast assembly?

 

[simba]

so when you turned it back on it turned back off or u turned it off.. im not 100% on that..

if it wont Relite Something unusual Happened
CMH can take some abuse (kinda)
also wait 5 minutes after something like that.. it doesnt like Hot restrike..

If it fires up then your ok
the next time it gets full fire up cycle it will go away..
its a sign of a chit start.. Basically you half charged it and it cooled in a half melted state..
its good though..
thats why we say if your power glitches just let it go.. dont unplug or anything cause right when you unplug it might get a Start up and do that..

you just dont want to do that to many times.. it will shorten Life.. (if done excessively)

 

[FreezerBoy]

Thanks, Simba.

Your lack of concern caused me to try the old, "Take everything apart and put it back together trick" It works fine now. I guess it was just bad luck and paranoia after an unusually BAD day.

That's quite a light show. I was waiting for the ol Outer Limits intro to kick in.

 

[greenisgold]

So besids me buy another ballast which I'm not going to do, what is the next best thing? Even though all other bulbs light I guess from what I have read is that these bulbs require more of a kick in the pants to get started. And if my ballast was not remote and the wire shorter then maybe this bulb would start. But shortening the cord is not doable. So I either bite the bullit, get them to send me another one or take ballast apart and install a different cap/igniter? If I go with the last scenario can anyone point to a plave that sells them?
Thanks

 

[FreezerBoy]

http://www.venturelighting.com/Ballasts_home.html

 

[gramsci.antonio]

here some photos:



The plants are LOVING the lamp

I have also and HPS bulb... do you think i should switch CMH/HPS bulbs for the plants?

 

[BillowingBudMkr]

I'm running Lifelight pulse 4K@600w on my Lumatek air cooled ifixtures and they seem to be decent bulbs and are extremely bright. I'm running them side by side with Hortilux Eye Enhanced Spectrum I will report in if I have anything meaningful to add. The bulb appears to be a quality bulb.

I know simba is saying they're are crap and I'm curious to what he means. Did he perform some kind of spectrum analysis on the bulb to determine output. They have Phillips on their commercial page so maybe they're using phillips components too. I don't know just a guess, but if they're going to get sued why would they have phillips on their page. Doesn't make sense to me.

I'm testing them out and they seem good so far.

 

[MPL]

Generally, how long can you run the cord between the igniter and the socket? I'm installing all of my equipment now and am not sure how far I can mount the ballast from the lamp. I'm running a HTG 400w ballast.

 

[gramsci.antonio]

Generally, how long can you run the cord between the igniter and the socket? I'm installing all of my equipment now and am not sure how far I can mount the ballast from the lamp. I'm running a HTG 400w ballast.

it depends on the igniter.

Some long, up to 50 meters, some short, up to 1 meter.


Anyhow the shorter the better.

 

[Guest]

gramsci.antonio -

If you are asking if you should switch out to the hps for flowering, NO WAY!

Those ladies do look mighty healthy! Nice work.

 

[Guest]

Now I did it! I hit that RF interfearance thread (electronic ballast) and asked them why they would waste time and worry on something that won't run a decent bulb. Of course I don't think there is another decent bulb out there (for the money) when compared to the CMH. The Eye halides (full spectrum) look o.k. for vegging, but not what you get from the CMH. Mostly the red/blue ratios and heat take them out of the running.

I mean come on, which color ballast is it now? Is it the silver? No, now it is the blue. Oh, wait now it is the purple! What if I buy the green Galaxy? I think I saw one in black. You know the plants would be really happy if we covered the whole spectrum. I think I will get one in every color.LOL!

 

[BillowingBudMkr]

THe interference issue is only with the 1000s. I'm running the blue, haha, and interference free. I'm currently running Hortilux HPS agains the CMH. Everything is working well. I will report if I have any issues.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Does the lamp care if it's plugged in to 120 versus 240? Obviously, I'd have to rewire the ballast and cord but, with all the extra equipment I've added to the Freezer, sockets are now at a premium. I happen to have a 120 clothes dryer which leaves the 240 socket behind it wide open.

So far everthings connected to a single wall socket (and 15 amp circuit breaker) with extension cords and power strips. Sure would be nice to move the biggest draw to another plug and its own 30 amp breaker.

 

[OsWiZzLe]

>>>>

 

[simba]

bulbs dont care what voltage the ballast is Tap'ed at.. (short version)
as the output to the lamp will be the same (IE 400 watt lamp is same for 120,220,440Volt input)

 

[Guest]

OsWiZzle -

Does that AB bulb require a pulse start ballast? I have been thinking about grabbing a 250w electronic and a 250w HQI AB 10k. The HQI is essentially the arc tube with no glass around it and the UV load is unreal. I would probably just run it for 6hrs per 12hr light cycle. Start it 3hrs after the cmh and kill it 3hrs before the cmh got off. That would give me a known "safe" time to work on the grow without risking skin or eye burns!!

 

[Guest]

Maybe for 20hrs a day for the last 10 - 14 days with one cmh and water just before lights on. Like 5 minutes before. That way I could unplug it if I needed extra time to check trichs and such. Heck, maybe just 6hrs each light cycle the whole way through flower and see what it does eh?

What do you think? Your garden looks grand!

 

[OsWiZzLe]

Azeotrope....I havent even tried the AB bulb out yet...shitttt I hope I dont need to buy a new ballast for this too lol I like your ideas on how to use the AB bulbs...I'm all ears bro....I havent thought too far ahead yet on how I'm gonna use them...but I'll be using as much information as possible that I can gather from all of you.

 

[Dragor]

Aye aye CMH'ers
I just received my Philips MasterColor 250w CMH retrofit bulb from online seller ($25 bux!) but realized too late that it was the "V" vertical version... Is it going to go bad much faster or worse yet blow up or something if I mount it in a horizontal reflector? I would really like to keep my old orientation and not have to change my whole setup because of this error (seller doesn't have horizontal version, and its $50 for horizontal from online sellers)... Please help somebody? Thanks