MH ballast ???

trillyen

trillyen

Member
i bought a used hamilton reef star 14k light set up complete with the ballast but im not gonna use the light right now
the ballast it came with is a icecap ballast, and it dosent say any thing about only being for a hqi buld it only says MH250
does this mean i can use it on a mogul based socket also???
if so thats awesome than i only gotta buy 1 more ballast!!!
thanks ahead of time!!!
If it was just a hqi ballast wouldnt it say it on there if there is such a ballast??? its just like this one
Or is it made to just power both hqi and mogul???
 
ifirefight

ifirefight

Active Member
I have 2 - 175 watt MH mougals. I think the mougals use a different ballast than the double ended bulbs. I believe one is a pulse start and the other is magnetic. Not sure though.I also have an ice-cap 660 that runs my VHOs. Do a search and you should find bulb/ballast compatibility charts. You deffinatlly want to use the proper ballast.
 
shookbrad

shookbrad

Member
Probably not. It will probably only run a hqi bulb. go to the icecap forum in the forums section of reefcentral. You can ask the icecap reps directly there. I have asked them questions there and they were very quick to respond.
 
hifi

hifi

Member
It will run a SE bulb but it will be overdriven & shorten bulb life, the hqi & SE ballast are diffrent. I dont how this would effect ballast life either buy using a SE bulb on a hqi ballast. I read some stuff that said the overdriving a bulb buy using a hqi on a SE bulb gives great light but I never tryed it. Not sure if it recomend it either. HTH
BTW you should find out for sure what ballast you have you could go to the website & find out there.
 
reefraff

reefraff

Active Member
The ballast will run SE or DE lamps just fine. It will under drive DE lamps a bit. For SE lamps it actually depends on the lamp, some with be driven at or a little above spec and others with be a little low.
 
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