Lights and Ballasts questions

Hey all I have used this forum for awhile but have never found it necessary to post.

A friend of mine was cleaning out a house and found a whole bunch of indoor lighting so I picked it up for $100.

I have two 400w ballasts one that does MH/HPS one dedicated to halide and a third ballast that says Diamond Horticultural Light model DHPS 1000.

I also have 4 reflectors, three of which have fixtures in them.

My question is how do I figure out which fixture goes to which ballast? and is that DHPS model 1000 indicate it is a 1000w ballast? Can it run multiple bulb types? Is it the ballast that determines the wattage and types of bulbs I can use in a fixture?

Any help would be appreciated!

The ballast is what determines type of light and wattage. Do the sockets have any scribe on them? Have you tried to google the '1000' ballast?

thanks for the reply

Yeah I tried to Google the ballast model number but got nothing specific about the lights/wattage but it appears to be 1000 watt, it has a listing of voltages up to 120-277.

does anyone have experience vegging plants using a 400 watt HPS and 400 watt MH light at the same time? Since my largest light is a 1000 watt HPS i am going to use it exclusively to fruit, and veg under the HPS MH combo any benefits or downsides to this set up?

Any ballast to any of the canopy is fine. Its just a light socket. (conductor to the bulb)

I would veg 6 plants under a 400w halide and start all the rest for the flower period.

Are you still planning or do you have something going already?

The 1000w can do halide and hps. Vegging under 1000w with a halide seems like a waste to me if your vegging less than 8 plants.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

Hey thanks for the response man, I havent started any plants yet but am going to around the 31st. I am planning on doing a DWC hydro grow. I wa also thinking of using a scrog on one of them just ot experiment. I was planning on doing 6-8 plants to keep it legal here in my city.

so if the ballast says sodium it can actually run halide or sodium?

any other tips for DWC would be appreciated too this will be my first Hydro grow and my first indoor grow in many years.

Thanks

Yeah, it is confusing at first. The new digital ballasts may be HPS/MH combos with a switch to jump from one to the other. The old heavier ballasts are either MH or HPS. Bulbs are one or the other. You have to have a HPS bulb for a HPS ballast.

"My question is how do I figure out which fixture goes to which ballast?" Fixtures go anywhere you can make them fit. I've used the same reflector with a 400W MH set-up and switched it to a 1000W HPS set-up.

NOTE -- nothing burns out expensive bulbs faster than turning them on and off quickly. So match the ballasts with the appropriate bulbs before you start experimenting. Good luck, BigSteve.

P.S. -- Good buy!!!

Yea like Steve said ballast and bulb HAVE to match but the fittings in the shade will run anything that fits...

since i can't copy and paste the article (which is good), i'll only post the link. fuck 10000 characters! what the fuck!!!

http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/wiringlights.htm

Hey thanks for all the responses, I think I have them figured out now. I slapped a 400w HPS into one and it fired up. The switchable ballasts toggle broke off so Ill replace that here in a few days and have everything ready to start Friday or Saturday next week.

I am planning on doing 4-6 plants DWC in individual buckets with a scrog from clones, and 1 or two from seed. I might try the SOG method in the future but my city doesn't allow for more than 9 legally.