malicifice
Well-Known Member
How many cycles of 12/12 do they last and what do you think the best brand is? I heard hortilux or something like that was pretty good.
yah, that is pretty crazy.. according to that chart, seems that mh's drop off about twice as badly as hps bulbs do, i never would have thought that..I was shocked to see the loss of Lumens with MH bulbs, nice chart.
think they're bad cn, i just recently switched over to sunpulse mh's for the entire grow.. they come in k ratings, much the way that say cfls do, you can get them from i think 3k all the way up to 10k, the tens they recommend for use in the last two weeks of flower..For us small non-commercial growers, I'd change a MH every 2 grows and an HPS every four. If you're big or commercial, perhaps with perpetual flower areas, a different calculus might apply. Jmo.
I burn one to two thousand hours of MH just veging one grow. I will have to look hard at what bulbs i should use. Those $90-. Ushio OptiSummat 600W conversion MHs might be un-economic. cn
i do know a lot of the better brand bulbs state that they have much less of a lose in lumens cn vs a cheaper brand bulb, which has always been one of their selling points, along with more light in the proper specturms i'd assume..The chart I found is generic. I might contact Ushio and get specific charts for the two bulbs I am using. MH and HPS ... one is Opti Red and the other Opti Blue ... (just went to look at the box) Opti Blue is the MH. I'm hoping the premium bulbs have a better hold on their initial luminance. I think I just gave myself more questions than answers. cn
If you get that please post it , cheeerz Umbre...The chart I found is generic. I might contact Ushio and get specific charts for the two bulbs I am using. MH and HPS ... one is Opti Red and the other Opti Blue ... (just went to look at the box) Opti Blue is the MH. I'm hoping the premium bulbs have a better hold on their initial luminance. I think I just gave myself more questions than answers. cn
How can a ballast and bulb that are set at a certain wattage use more watts , sorry that is just stupid!You're HPS bulb will say on the box how much life is guaranteed mine is 24,000hours but remember it start's using more watts as normal, then drops in lumens so lumens lost while being a lot more expensive on electric so you should change you're bulb every time you have used them for about 19,000 hours to prevent this, my High Pressure Sodium is 600watts and completely worth it, i can replace my 600w bulb for no more than ten pound it's really not a big issue just make sure you get a ballast which is the same wattage as the bulb or it will be ineffective if the ballast let's out less watts than recommended for the bulb and if the ballast is 600w and the bulb is 400 250w... the bulb will blow and possibly cause a fire