Maxx
Well-Known Member
Hey scooter,
thanks for the kind words, just trying to return favors done for me in the past...
I'm going HQI also, thats one of the beautiful things about E-ballasts. Total flexibility in bulbs and less power draw. I dont have any experiance to back this up, but my understanding, (from the links I provided you guys w/) is that E-ballasts wont overdrive bulbs. This means that you will replace bulbs less often. Which will also save you money in the long run. One of the other things that JBNY is discovering is that the bulbs are lasting longer than many manufacturers are saying....excerpts....
"I still have a Ushio that had about 13 months on the PFO HQI. I could test that and see what it shows."
" Ushio with 13 months and a few days measured 535 PAR on the PFO HQI. About a 13% difference than the newer Ushio that measured 617."
This in reply to the above statements...
"pretty darn impressive! especially on an HQI. kind of makes you think twice about switching the bulbs at 12 months because "they said i needed to."
JBNY's response..
"I think the lamps are rated for about 7,800 hours. Don't know where that figure is from though. We generally replace our lamps at about the 3,285 hr mark. That's with the lamp running 9 hours a day for a year."
All of this can be found here....http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=254667&perpage=25&pagenumber=15 bottom third of the page.
For the record, running your bulbs for 12 hours a day will get you 4380 hours on a bulb in one year. IMO this makes the inital cost of E-ballasts much more acceptable. After 2 years in bulb replacements alone, (not needing) the E-ballast should have begun to pay for itself. But again, I havent had any personal experiance w/ this. Thats the plan, I hope the ballasts cooperate
Anyway, hope this helps...
Nick
thanks for the kind words, just trying to return favors done for me in the past...
I'm going HQI also, thats one of the beautiful things about E-ballasts. Total flexibility in bulbs and less power draw. I dont have any experiance to back this up, but my understanding, (from the links I provided you guys w/) is that E-ballasts wont overdrive bulbs. This means that you will replace bulbs less often. Which will also save you money in the long run. One of the other things that JBNY is discovering is that the bulbs are lasting longer than many manufacturers are saying....excerpts....
"I still have a Ushio that had about 13 months on the PFO HQI. I could test that and see what it shows."
" Ushio with 13 months and a few days measured 535 PAR on the PFO HQI. About a 13% difference than the newer Ushio that measured 617."
This in reply to the above statements...
"pretty darn impressive! especially on an HQI. kind of makes you think twice about switching the bulbs at 12 months because "they said i needed to."
JBNY's response..
"I think the lamps are rated for about 7,800 hours. Don't know where that figure is from though. We generally replace our lamps at about the 3,285 hr mark. That's with the lamp running 9 hours a day for a year."
All of this can be found here....http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=254667&perpage=25&pagenumber=15 bottom third of the page.
For the record, running your bulbs for 12 hours a day will get you 4380 hours on a bulb in one year. IMO this makes the inital cost of E-ballasts much more acceptable. After 2 years in bulb replacements alone, (not needing) the E-ballast should have begun to pay for itself. But again, I havent had any personal experiance w/ this. Thats the plan, I hope the ballasts cooperate
Anyway, hope this helps...
Nick
