Best Brand of Digital Ballast?

[CoughingMan]

Who do you think puts out the best quality digital ballast? I need two 600 watt ballasts and I was thinking about going digital.

Lumatek makes a dual 600 W ballast that seems pretty appealing, anyone have experience with this?

I was also looking at quantums and nextgens.

I have heard of these things overheating and melting, starting fires etc. Which brand is less prone to these problems?

 

[greenenergy]

go lumatek or galaxy, and use a bulb that is designed for use in a digital ballast. most problems with modern digitals are a result of bulb incompatibly issues. Digis run at a higher frequency and will likely burn out hortilux bulbs faster than usual. This setup will be superior to a magnetic ballast setup

 

[wizard420]

lumatek is a top notch ballast.

 

[cletus]

what about the generic ones? I'd like to save some money but are they worth it?

 

[greenplanetguru]

Quantum gets my vote...

I love my Quantum 1K. I've had it about 6 months and it's been solid. The dimmable voltage feature has given me a lot of flexibility when temps and humidity were at their peak about a month ago. In addition to running at 1K, I can dim the ballast to 75% for 750w or 50% for 500w. Each step down drops the heat in my bloom closet about 4 degrees. Most of the time my ventilation and a/c can handle running it at 1K but at times dimming the voltage really helped keep things in the 70's. Since you can run HPS or MH or the Solar Max Dual Arc lamp that I use for the transition to flowering at 3 different voltage selections it's like having 6-9 ballasts in one... The dimmer is also useful when hardening off clones to HID lighting as well...

Oh... and I really like it! :big_boss:

 

[TheMadHatter]

I got a bunch of lumatek's and I love them

 

[greenthumbdanny]

I gonna have to go with them ganja green galaxy's.. Ever since herbs melting of his lumatex was enough to make me go the other way:)

 

[Red Brickhouse]

I have a bunch of lumatex blow/fry bulbs, the local store has credited me for them and now have me on the nextgen. So far so good...

 

[sky high]

the Lumies have served me well (600's) but the Quantum's are the shit with the dimmable feature/internal fan.

and the orange extruded aluminum case just LOOKS so cool!

 

[Oldsog]

lumatek has the dual volt 600 which are very nice. nextgen has a switchable 400/600 that is also very nice. now if someone would make a 1000/600 switchable i'd be really happy.

 

[CoughingMan]

greenplanet has me sold on the quantum so far. I havnt heard 1 bad thing about them yet!

have heard lots of different oppinions about lumatek.

 

[Brer Rabbit]

Yeah that would be nice. I would probably be one of the first people in line, but unfortunately they still don't make 600W MH bulbs.

 

[OGsus]

have heard lots of different oppinions about lumatek.

me too. lately alot of bad things. someone was telling me that digital ballasts gives off a signal that can be trakced by LEO. has anyone else heard this??

 

[Zoolander]

I have 2 1000 watt Quantums in th boxes going up soon and thes are what they gave me when the Lumteks melted . I loe my gallexys and hope to love Quantum also but FUCK Lumetek

 

[CoughingMan]

Well thanks for all the input....

I have come to a conclusion based on what I have heard from everyone here and I am pretty sure I am gonna go Quantum. It seems that quantum, galaxy, and nextgen are pretty decent, never heard of any complaints, but sounds like lumatek is hit or miss.

Dealing with growing marijuana you cant afford to risk anything with a hit or miss product.

 

[MIZZ ELVIS]

I gonna have to go with them ganja green galaxy's.. Ever since herbs melting of his lumatex was enough to make me go the other way:)

Galaxy is the way to go, I would steer clear of lumatek ballasts(I have heard quite a few horror stories from numerous sources), atleast models over 400W.....My 2cents

 

[Punk]

I went through 3 Lumiteks, I will never buy another one. They are junk imo. I have NextGen's now, been problem free.

 

[Dice]

Galaxcy is what i run now. I like them and they hold up. I ran a couple differnt watt Future brite ballist's what Junk.

 

[Raoul]

(4) 600w Digital Greenhouse still running strong after 2+ years.

 

[curiousbud]

quantum you can dimm for each stage unbeatable