Adjustable Ballasts

[evu80]

I hope someone with knowledge in this area can help me out. I just bought a few 1000 watt solistek ballasts for my new place.

Because of limited power I'll have to mix and match watts during certain stages of growth to avoid overloading my breaker panel.

I believe I have read somewhere in this forum that dimming a 1000 watt bulb to anything less such as 600 is a bad idea because by doing so, its not functioning the way it was design to. In other words, its better to use a bulb that was meant to run at 600 watts with the dimmable feature than it is with a 1K bulb.

Is there any truth in this?

Also will I be drawing less amps on this kind of ballast if its dimmed down from 1k which is suppose to draw 4.5 in the owners manual.

 

[sky high]

Sounds like you'd be better off to spend some $$$ upgrading yer electrical and simply run a 1K than to buy all sorts of lamps to try to keep from blowin a breaker....

but that's just me.....

Hopefully someone with electrical knowledge can tell you if you are, in fact, using less amps when you dim down..or..if it's pullin the same power and steppin it down somehow.... (I'm gonna guess option "B"...same power draw...just "rheostated" down for the lamp wattage somehow)

good luck

s h

 

[tattoojim]

that 4.5 amps is gonna b on a 240 line...and like sky said you better buy the wire and breakers if you want the effecincy ..

 

[tattoojim]

there is a good thread on this topic...lots of info in it

 

[tattoojim]

a roll of 10-2 wire and a 2 pull 30 amp breaker
g.e. 240volt mechanical timer
200$ at most
and you can run 3 dimmable digis at what ever watt..1k preffered setting

 

[dankworth]

I hope someone with knowledge in this area can help me out. I just bought a few 1000 watt solistek ballasts for my new place.

Because of limited power I'll have to mix and match watts during certain stages of growth to avoid overloading my breaker panel.

I believe I have read somewhere in this forum that dimming a 1000 watt bulb to anything less such as 600 is a bad idea because by doing so, its not functioning the way it was design to. In other words, its better to use a bulb that was meant to run at 600 watts with the dimmable feature than it is with a 1K bulb.

Is there any truth in this?

Also will I be drawing less amps on this kind of ballast if its dimmed down from 1k which is suppose to draw 4.5 in the owners manual.

Give up your stove or your dryer. Rob the cord, run 240 through or under the place. Wire it to the lighting controller.
Before you do this, camp out at Home depot reading the part of the book that explains how to do this.
That and read the electrical threads here.

 

[fishwhistle]

Alot of different opinions about the questions your asking,i have emailed solis tek twice asking about bulb sizes and power consumption at different ballast power settings and never gotten an answer.Somebody with a killawatt will figure it out someday.