lighting Question?? from the land of OZ

Hi, first post here as i am starting to get better at typing lol. i bought a hps light ballast and hood of ebay for $50 and works really well. The ballast the guy sent me is for metal halide 400w, but it came with a son-t-agro 400w hps light which seems to work excellently. i want to go buy a metal halide light to start veging and then use the hps for flower. i have surfed around a bit here and found mixed reactions to doing this? help appreciated to a newb!!! PS light puts out alot of heat and being in the tropics is a bit of a problem.

are the bulbs different down there? i'm from the states and i can just go to the hardware store and find bulbs up to 600w. 400W Metal Halide Universal Bulb ED28. there's one for $28.00

If you can enclose the light, best being a hood for it with heat-proof glass plate, hook up a blower or high CFM in-line fan to the hood to suck air out and that will help cool the light down. HydroFarm has some pretty good hoods for different sized lights.

Is you ballast possibly a MH/HPS conversion ballast?(if so ignore the rest this post)

Some HPS/MH bulbs will work in the opposite sockets, but it's not safe. They work/run on different types of electricity and doing what you're describing can be very dangerous, mainly a fire hazard.

Best thing at this time would be just to use a MH the whole way through. It will still give some good smoke, I promise.

P.S.- If anyone can elaborate on this, go for it. I dunno the specifics of the wiring and such, but I know I covered the jist of it, and I know it's dangerous to do.

The ballast has to be either a conversion ballast, or a HPS ballast. A MH ballast would not even light a HPS bulb as it lacks an ignitor, which is the only real difference between the two types of ballasts. To be safe, you could go with a MH conversion bulb, which is a MH bulb designed to run safely in a HPS ballast.

thanks heaps for the info guys, i think it is going to be best play it safe and find myself one of those conversion bulbs. My next door neighbour is a prosecuting sergent for the police so i dont need my cupboard catching fire any time soon!!!

thanks heaps for the info guys, i think it is going to be best play it safe and find myself one of those conversion bulbs. My next door neighbour is a prosecuting sergent for the police so i dont need my cupboard catching fire any time soon!!! I have seen a couple of those cooling hoods, thing i will start looking. thankyou all