HID Lighting on a budget

[waltmarkers]

When I was setting up my grow area, I found the least expensive HID fixtures were the old lights torn out of a gym or a shop. The old high bay, fixed ballast type that are very tall for a light and throw a lot of heat. Since everyone swore by these lights I bought one anyway. I saw a dude on GK who had rewired his into a remote ballast so he could put the ballast outside the closet, decreasing fixture height and increasing grow room.

I desided I could do this too, so I set to work on my light, got a few parts from home depot, and now I have myself a 400 watt MH remote ballast. These things are great, the lamp performs exactly the same, and the ballast can go outside the chamber. For those with a limited amount of room, the extra foot of room through the conversion is a huge difference in space, and it cuts the heat output to a third inside the chamber. Lower temps during veg mean more females.

I swear by these, you can pick up a converted remote ballast on ebay for under 100 dollars including shipping, or about 50 and convert it yourself. For those on a budget, this is far more appealing than the sunsystem hydro lamps for twice the price.

[Heath_Bogenreif]

Remote ballasts and self enclosed ballasts have different rated/value parts. Its not as simple as just tossing on six to twelve extra feet of heavy gauge wire.

[waltmarkers]

I wanted to check and do some research before I replied. As long as the wire is replaced with heavy gague wire, it should not significatly effect resistance. As in about 5%, which should be within the tolerances of the ballast. The only time you will have a problem is with a very long cable run using thin gague wire, or with a poor ballast to begin with.

[Heath_Bogenreif]

Its not the gauge of the wire that causes the problems but its as you otherwise indicated the length of wire. If the wire is too long for the rated capacitor it wont have the proper juice build up to pulse start the bulb. The capacitive juice to start the bulb gets dropped over the length of the wire.

[waltmarkers]

True, the length of the cable run is important, but the gague of the wire is also included in the resistance calculation.


Wire Gauge Resistance per foot

4 .000292
6 .000465
8 .000739
10 .00118
12 .00187
14 .00297
16 .00473
18 .00751
20 .0119
22 .0190
24 .0302
26 .0480
28 .0764

Using 12 gague wire will have less resistance over 12 feet as 16 gague over 6 feet. Thanks for playing. A 10 foot cable run with 12 gague wire has less then 1% resistance which will not significantly affect the voltage / amprage to the bulb.

[web420]

When I upgraded to a 250w light I converted a highbay light
Have used it for a year with no problems that im aware of.
I got 3' to the reflector and 5-6' to the plug, What are some of the side effects?
Burns the bulbs out faster?
:bongdude:

[waltmarkers]

Theorerically, an underpowered bulb will burn out faster or not put out the rated watts. Practically, you probably won't notice the difference, as other factors affect bulb life, such as the current from the outlet and ambient temp surrounding the bulb.


When I upgraded to a 250w light I converted a highbay light
Have used it for a year with no problems that im aware of.
I got 3' to the reflector and 5-6' to the plug, What are some of the side effects?
Burns the bulbs out faster?
:bongdude:

[Heath_Bogenreif]

For those short of lengths it probably wont be affected but some mfgs bulbs need the full pulse juice from the capacitor in order to start the bulb. Im pretty sure that you judge your gauge of wire based on either the standard used or the power transmission amps through the line. Im also curious as how those resistance factors change when they have 4 to 9 amps running through them.
http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

Also the math is missing some other factors why the length of wire makes a difference heres a link for that too.
http://www.tpub.com/neets/book2/4.htm