Not sure about the Quantums. I saw about 150 Quantums on a pallet waiting to go back to the manufacturer in China, they were 1000w and 600w models. It's so sad that none of these electronic ballasts can be repaired in North America.
Word, brother. We can build jet turbines in this country but we can't fix a damn digi? Give me a break!
...and here, Logic, is why I run magnetic ballasts; when one quit on me, I dropped it by my local hydro store and they had it fixed in less than 2 hours. I don't care how cool the digi is, someday it will break and then what? If it's out of warranty, you're screwed, that's what. Doesn't strike me as a good deal somehow, when magnetic ballasts are so standardized that off the shelf components can be used to fix nearly any brand of them.
Also, it turns out that digi ballasts do NOT necessarily run the bulbs better or brighter, or even more efficiently. It's very much a matter of how the digi was built, and with what quality components. After all, if there were no problems with running ANSI compliant 1000w bulbs at 10,000Hz, why would bulb manufacturers A. warn that using their bulbs in digi ballasts voids any warranty, and B. be coming out with digi ballasts that run at 60Hz (which, by the way, all but negates any performance advantage a digi might have over magnetic)?
Thirdly, illmind, if I were in your shoes, I would be doing a lot more learning about electrical theory and testing with quality gear and a lot less mouthing off about how you already know it all, or those who really do know it all here (that would be you, Olyver!) will continue to make you look like an idiot. Mankind only learns when ears are open and MOUTH IS SHUT.
Case in point; electricity, like any other form of energy, must obey the laws of physics- one of which is that matter or energy is never created or destroyed, it only changes form. So if a dimmable ballast (btw, that's not some dumb dimmer switch running the chandelier in your dining room, but a quality digitally controlled dimmer) always pulls the same current, then where does the excess go? If it went into heat, the ballast would be toast, literally. It cannot just 'dissipate'...
I do run several digi ballasts from several manufacturers. While I haven't had any pop yet, I have a backup mag. just in case. Also, I DO like the 'overdrive' option available on these digi ballasts, specifically to get the most out of the last few months of bulb life instead of watching my yields dwindle. Once you put 6 months or a year on a bulb, it's going to be dimmer than a new one- so I overdrive to make up for that loss, and at the end of that cycle, the bulb gets replaced, digi goes back to 100%, and me and the ladies are happy.
One more issue with modern digis is that most don't tolerate flip box setups gladly, reading the sudden change as a line fault and shutting off until someone comes to reset them. Yes, there are strategies to handle this, but a magnetic ballast doesn't need the fancy workaround, it just runs the load.
Finally, anyone who tells you that a bulbs' spectrum doesn't change when input wattage changes is either seriously misinformed or is trying to deceive you. HID bulbs work by getting very hot, which excites the electrons in the working material, which sends off photons, all closely related to the temperature the working 'filament' material is operating at. Cut the wattage and the temp. will drop, shifting the spectrum. That holds true for light bulbs, open flames, nuclear weapons and the stars themselves... So why don't the manufacturers talk about it? Because they already know this, and they don't want to be seen as 'the' bulb maker that says running their bulb below its rated wattage changes its spectrum. A digi ballast running a bulb on any setting other than 100% is by definition outside of the ASNI specification the bulb was designed to meet, whether it runs at 60Hz or not.
