HQI ballast question

[nin0]

Im going to purchase this HQI 400w PFO ballast & im wondering about the wiring. I currently have a pendant that holds a 175w bulb and i want to know if it would be easy to wire these two together(the ballast and the pendant)....im not too good with electrical stuff hehe...any advice would be apreciated

 

[D-Nak]

Hold on a sec.... do HQIs come in a 175 watt bulb? I thought they only came in 150 and 250 watts (and above). Are you talking about a 175 mogul socket? If so, I'm confused as to what you are attempting to do.

D-Nak

 

[nin0]

yeah its for a 175 mogul socket....

 

[billzie]

Wiring from ballast to bulb is the same: hot, neg, ground. The sockets are definately different, even b/t the different wattages of DE (hqi), so you'll have to get the appropriate socket installed and have a tempered glass shield installed if you don't already have one, and you can't have a fan flowing right onto the DE bulb or anywhere within the pendant. HTH, Bill.

 

[Big_fish]

Bill,
I beg to differ. When dealing with the 400W bulbs such as Ushio the bulbs run better on an HQI ballast than a typical core and coil. I believe the 10000K Ushio bulbs are actually designed for an HQI ballast. You can see a big difference when you fire them up with the HQI ballast.
Regards,
Scott

 

[billzie]

Scott, Um, I talking only about DE/HQI bulbs here, I guess I just assummed he was going to convert his pendants to DE when he mentioned the HQI ballast. Shame on me for assumming someone would be taking a step toward the future of MH lighting,

seems the Europeans are years ahead of us on this issue, as well, in our hobby. Ya know, why is it taking so long for all of these ideas to catch on here. Hey, I'm riding the coat-tails of the HQI thing myself, good way to go MH for the first time though. Later, Bill.

 

[fergy]

Bill-

Double-ended and HQI are two different things. There are both mogul and DE HQI lamps. HQI refers to a product line which Osram(Germany) has trademarked. Nothing more.

BRIAN

 

[suckair]

The one thing about "arc lighting technology" the lamps can't limit the current consumption. Threrefore we need a ballast to run them. Most ballasts run at 2/3'rd line voltage speaking of 110v and are used as current limiters for the lamps.

For this reason it is very important to have a proper bulb/ballast combo. The differences between bulbs is a mixture of elements in it's arc gas and these differences affect their optimum current consumption to light output. In fact some exotic lamps require a specific ballast or will not function at optimum levels. It is true you can often interchange ballasts between same wattage bulbs but often to get the best performance and life out of the lamp you need to be more selective.

I run IceCap 250w on all my HQI setups but had to custom tune the ballasts to my lamps!

good luck.

 

[suckair]

Oh yea.. to be more specific. If you hook up a 175w lamp to a 400w supply the current limitation to the lamp will be insufficiant and will end in a spectacular explosion of the lamp envelope!

Make sure you stand back 20feet if you decide to do this anyway.

Good Luck

Randall