logic
Administrator
Staff
- 6,946
- 313
I am not a fan of dimmable ballast. One of the heads at Eye Hortilux explained to me that by dimming the ballast down the bulb will not fire to its full potential meaning the grower will never achieve the full spectrum possibilities of the lamp. She used the analogy that dimming a ballast is like driving a car with the parking break on. Also, I am hesitant to buy lighting system from new companies like quantum. I have bought gear from new lighting companies only to see them fold in a few years and therefore not being able to get their products warrantied. Hydrofarm is one of the original players in the industry so when you buy a phantom ballast you can rest assure they are going to take care of the product if it fails.
Get your self the gavita range of 400v. They do a 1000w dimable ballast shade in one or remote.
Biggest yields poss and best built tec I have played with in the grow room. And their cust support is the best.
The biggest thing to take into consideration with any digital ballast is operating frequency. Unlike magnetic ballast diigital ballasts are not ANSI certified. All magnetic ballast are ANSI certified to operate at 60hz. SO most bulbs are designed to run at 60hz. Since there is no ANSI certification on digital ballasts some may run at 10k hz and some as high as 100k hz, you have to try and find the right bulb for that particular ballast. Under my understanding Next Gen and Quantum have some of the highest operating frequencies of all the digital ballasts. AN makes a low frequency digital ballast and now EYE Hortilux is making a low frequency digital ballast both utilizing square wave low frequency drive technology.
Digital Ballasts are very efficient in floroecent lighting because its improves the lamps efficiency to run at a higher frequency. This is not the case with digital HID ballasts, thats why I would say the Phantom is better because it operates at a lower frequency and you will probably have less bulb compatibility issues using Phantom ballasts.
Also I would like to comment on the "dimmable" feature on most electronic ballasts on the market. This is done using pulse-width modulation which is pretty much a fancy way of saying chaniging the frequency. This will not save electric because the output wattage remains the same the only thing that changes is the operating frequency. This is a common mis-understanding about dimmable digital ballasts. People think if they turn down the dial they are saving money, but that is far from true.
Hope this helps - GC
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?