Digital or Magnetic?

[Dankafied]

so today i went out and purchased a C.A.P 1000w xtream ballast. im aware of the digital ballast but my concern is their reliability. everything is still packaged and i have the receipt. so my question is should i return the Magnetic ballast and go digital? and is there really that much of a difference?

 

[DroJo]

Re: Digital or Magnetic???

Honestly. This is one of those things that can go back and forth all day.
Ill keep it simple. It really depends on what kind of bulb you are getting. Digitals, run cooler and are more efficent. The % of efficiency will be argued as long as they exist tho lol. Downside is they have computer components which are known to fail. And no matter what brand digi you get that's always a possibilty. The magnetic are more 'tried and true'. But they get a lot hotter than digis. They also are known to have uneven energy draws sometimes with spikes. But like I said it more depends on how big your grow is and what kind of bulbs you're looking to purchase. For instance, if you had you're eye on an EYE bulb(hortilux etc) I would tell you get a magnetic ballast because they dont fail or blow as much in a mag. If you had a digi I'd tell you to get a Ushio because those are made especially for digi ballasts.


Did you get your bulb yet bro?

 

[Dankafied]

Re: Digital or Magnetic???

yeah it came free with the light? i was worried about the computer components. ive seen a lot of horror threads about digis breaking down. what do you run?

 

[Dankafied]

lol the subject is so touchy no one wants to put in their two cents. Im kinda thinkin bout keepin the mag

 

[Droopy Dog]

Keep the mag. In the unlikely event something does fail, you can easily get parts at an electrical supply store and be back running in a matter of hours. Not so with a digital.

Of failures, where I worked, we had ~100+ 400w MH inside and~10 400w HPS outside. In the 23 years we were in that building I only saw 1 ballast failure and that was on one of the outside lights.

BTW I'm running a 400w MH and 400w HPS, both magnetic.

DD

 

[DroJo]

Droopy is 100% right. I will add that many ppl have had digis for 5-10 years and havent had one failure. So idk it really is up to you bro. Your chances are better with the mag tho. I've got a 1000k digi here and a 1000 mag and I use my Lumatek. I've enjoyed it so far, and its dimmable. So digis have benefits that come with the low % risk.

But for real tho, its up to you.

 

[Dankafied]

their is a big part of me that wants to run a digi but for now im gonna pump out a couple of grows with this old school mag. the cool part is when the time comes to run a digi ill still have this back up mag ballast just incase the digi gives me any problems.




ok so i want to run the 1000w HPS light in a 8x10 bedroom but im worried about temps. i plan on running a 16/8 light schedule until the plants reach about 6 to 8 inches long (so not very long) then ill switch to 12/12...in dead space without any light, during the day the temps in the bedroom are any where from 70 to 73. of course i would run the light at night...at night with both windows open with temps are around 60 to 65. does anyone know how much of an increase in temps ill be lookin at?

 

[StinkFinger]

FYI.

We have a thread going for problems possibly related to the electronic ballast.

Might want to check it out, if you get the chance.
CAP NextGen Ballasts: Problems?

Peace.
SF

 

[TorturedSoul]

ok so i want to run the 1000w HPS light in a 8x10 bedroom

That's not a lot of light for an 80 ft^2 space. Only around 1875 lumens per square foot. Your plants would be much happier with 3000 per for vegetative and closer to 5000 per for flowering.

Might consider either getting a lot more light in there or shrinking your grow space quite a bit.