rlanders67
Member
Ok so I bought what I believe to be some good lighting. 1 X 250w 10,000K HQI MH, 2 X 65w True Actinic 03 Blue and 2 x 1w Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow. This came with a HQI metal halide Ballast. What is the purpose of the Ballast?
Lighting Ballast
- Thread starter rlanders67
- Start date
reefforbrains
Active Member
to jumpstart the voltage for the MH, they need pretty insane voltage to fire up
rlanders67
Member
Thanks....
scsinet
Active Member
They also regulate the current.
Any time a lamp produces light by passing electricity through a gas (all fluorescents and halide lamps do this),the amount of current would rise until it catastrophically failed if some sort of current limiting was not in place, so the ballast keeps the proper amount of current (175w for a 175w bulb, etc) flowing.
But it also provides that starting kick just like Reef said. It's usually many times the voltage that comes out of a wall outlet... depending on the system, it can be hundreds to a thousand volts or more... :scared:
Any time a lamp produces light by passing electricity through a gas (all fluorescents and halide lamps do this),the amount of current would rise until it catastrophically failed if some sort of current limiting was not in place, so the ballast keeps the proper amount of current (175w for a 175w bulb, etc) flowing.
But it also provides that starting kick just like Reef said. It's usually many times the voltage that comes out of a wall outlet... depending on the system, it can be hundreds to a thousand volts or more... :scared: