Overdrive metal halide lamps

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fulkerl

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I've read that our magnetic ballasts under drive most lamps. So I have been doing some searching and found this site. Overdriving Lamps And Ballast - Lumenlab Quote "The M59 outputs 135V at 3.2A. Almost all of them come with a 24uf cap. If the cap on you ballast is 24uf then adding a 2uf cap will increase the power by about 50 watts and about 50 more watts for each 2uf of cap. (more like 50 watts -5 for each 2uf)" What do you guys think?
 

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why not just use an electronic hqi metal halide ballast they run the SE bulbs at higher cleaner watts also the problem with running them higher would shorten the life of the bulb and cause you to replace them more often
 
why not just use an electronic hqi metal halide ballast they run the SE bulbs at higher cleaner watts also the problem with running them higher would shorten the life of the bulb and cause you to replace them more often

Yea, when you start overdriving the lamps you start shifting the designed spectrum.
 
Is that correct Scooty? I know that the HQI in the case of a 400 watt overdrives by 30 watts and will shorten the bulb life. In a 20k it makes the life span about 6 months. But I did not know their was that much color shift in the spectrum they pump out.

Mojo
 
Yes overdriven the lamp will do all that. But the magnetic ballasts underdrive the lamp, I'm just trying to get closer to the lamp spec and color spectrum of the bulb.
 
here is an example of when i had my 210 set up the far left is an hqi ballast and the middle and right side is a pfo magnetic ballast. bulbs are 12k reflux blubs
DSC04153.jpg

all bulbs were bought at the same time and installed at the same time. you can tell that the hqi ballast on the left makes the bulb look 10k and the color shift in the bulbs
 
Is that correct Scooty? I know that the HQI in the case of a 400 watt overdrives by 30 watts and will shorten the bulb life. In a 20k it makes the life span about 6 months. But I did not know their was that much color shift in the spectrum they pump out.

Mojo

My eyes are getting old Mike so I may not notice a huge difference but it does shift as in Thatguys pic, you can see it.
Now the point, If he was underdriving them in the first place, then I see no issues in all aspect, probably not enough to do much harm!
Hey what is the worst that can happen HUH? :yo: Busted lamp?:boxing:Naaa!:biggrin1:
 
here is an example of when i had my 210 set up the far left is an hqi ballast and the middle and right side is a pfo magnetic ballast. bulbs are 12k reflux bulbs
DSC04153.jpg

all bulbs were bought at the same time and installed at the same time. you can tell that the hqi ballast on the left makes the bulb look 10k and the color shift in the bulbs

Thanks for the pic, just what I needed to see. I was hoping to get more blue out of my bulbs by over driving them, but I like the right side of your tank better. I have a couple more months on my bulb and then will be looking for new bulbs. Do you remember what bulbs you were running then? Thanks Larry
 
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