Dr.stickerdick said:

InvisibleM you said you feel shock or something from hood? If that's the case you've got current flow on your ground, or at least on metal parts. Do you have a sub pannel in your grow room or are you coming from the main pannel? If a sub pannel then is the netural and ground in it bonded together? They shouldn't be. If it comes from main pannel to recepticle is there a bootlegged ground? This too could cause current on metal parts. Peace

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fengshui32 said:

The 1000 watters seem to have had the most issues. My 1000 was purchased 2 years ago, and it was running on the top floor of a two story house and it would cause buzzing on the AM radio band and interference lines on the TV. I would turn on the radio to around AM 530, no station broadcast there, and flip on the digi and hear the buzz come thru the speakers. Ended up wrapping the 15 ft. cord in aluminum foil from the end of the ballast case to the hood. That 'fix' cut the RF by about half. Could still hear it on the car radio when I drove up, but the bubble of interference was about 30 ft. Interestingly enough, when that same digi went to an underground basement across town, there was no interference, but the electrical panel in the new place had a place for a ground wire that went to a separate bus bar in the panel from where the neutral bus bar resides. Lumatek literature was stressing the importance of not sharing ground and neutral on the same circuit as some older homes have done in their breaker boxes.

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InvisibleM said:

OK here's the update on my rf noise problem..... I had total static (am radio) out to the road to about 60 feet, and half static to 120 feet or so.

Well..... I took a #12 romex ground wire out of the romex sheath, then I wraped it around every screw on my hood, I have a cone shaped 4 ft bolt together hood, then I hooked the other end of the ground wire to my grounded outlet box below my timer.

What a difference! That got rid of about 90% of the static so I knew I was on a roll. Next I wrapped the lamp cord with aluminum foil, and put one end of the foil under the digital ballast and the other end I wrapped around the ground wire I had just ran.

It worked! Almost all of the static is gone now, so I might even buy another digital ballast some day. Just make sure when you buy one that you can return it....

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DrDanko said:

InvisibleM, Widowmaker, Dr Stickerdick....I'm looking to you guys for some advice here. All the info so far has been great, now I'm trying to apply it. Keep in mind, I have no clue when it comes to electrical, however I have a friend out-of-state that could possibly help me. So I have 2 electronic ballasts from NextGen. 600W each. I bought an AM/FM radio and tried it out. I can stand within about 2 feet of the ballast and get about half-static. I only get full static if I essentially tough the radio to the ballast. If I go down the hallway to the living room, it fades to almost nothing. Very minor if noticeable. Do you think I'm gonna have issues? I am in a condo so I have neighbors that aren't far, but I still feel like once I'm outside the apartment it's virtually gone with my radio. I'll have to test with both on, that was just with one ballast firing on high. I doubt I have grounding issues, as the whole ballast is metal. Or maybe I still do? Hopefully this info is enough for you to pass on some advice. I really need to get these plants flowering, they've been in veg for 3 months. But wanna make sure I'm safe first. So main questions if I haven't lost you...How much interference is enough to get noticed(I'm sure the electrical co has sensitive equipment)? Do you recommend that I try to use the insulated wire like InvisibleM did? Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Peace. DrD.

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