Blueline Ballasts

[Len]

I know it's been asked before, but haven't seen recent reports. To those who use Blueline Ballast (400W in particular), do they still cause interference?
Is the interference local, or house-wide?
What line filters are you using if they do?
Do the bulbs appear brighter/dimmer then with conventional ballasts?
Are they reliable (so far)?

Thanks for the input.

 

[Jason Day]

Hi Leonard,

I've been using a blueline ballast for about three months now and I really love it. Especially when you consider that it uses about 20% less electricity then a standard tar ballast.

Would recommend them.

jason

 

[sanjay]

Where did you get this 20% less power information? Do you have any data to back it up ?

sanjay.

 

[murrayjim]

I haven't noticed any interference with my e-ballasts, and they have been very reliable. The only problem I had was they looked used when I got them(all scratched and corners bent), anyone have the same problem with Champion?
As far as the enery savings I have no personal proof but there is a little information on the blueline web site and also a review at this link.web page

 

[Ninong]

Sanjay,

On their website, the importer makes this statement: "Power savings 20% to 30% versus magnetic ballast." http://www.tbil.com/HID_Ballast/hid_ballast.html

I don't know if they have any testing data to substantiate their claim.

I know several people who have experienced both RFI and EMI with these ballasts. This is a quote from an e-mail I received from one hobbyist:

"As I'm sure you know, switching power supplies have huge harmonic content on the AC line (non-linear load). That and the RF "hash" can be significant if poorly designed. These units are the worst I have ever known. I have used a Sony ICF-2010 short-wave receiver and found the ballast originating noise is 20db of S-9 for two houses away from the source.

Will a line filter take care of this? I'm not sure since the "hash" I'm hearing I believe is coming from the unit itself or the leads to the lamp. What do you know about this and is there a fix?"

I responded to his e-mail by informing him that the importer of the Blueline ballasts is Triple Bright International. He called them up (this was in January 2001) to complain about the interference. He was informed that the ballasts were NOT yet FCC type accepted. In fact, he was told that they considered the ballasts to be "experimental" and didn't know if the manufacturer in China would be interested in redesigning them to gain FCC acceptance since the volume was much too small to be profitable. They claimed that they import them in lots of only 100 ballasts for Champion Lighting, the exclusive retailer.

I do know that Scott D. Passe has the 400w Blueline ballasts running 10,000K AB-10000 lamps and because he uses a Neptune Systems Aquacontroller with X-10 modules, he had to install two different types of filters to supress the interference.

I don't have any more recent information than that so it's possible that the ballasts may have been redesigned by now to eliminate the interference problems. When this topic came up on another board a couple of months ago, someone posted that the manufacturer was working on a "fix."

Ninong

 

[sanjay]

I have tested these ballasts and I was unable to justify thier claim of 20-30% savings in power.

You can see the test data on my web site
www.personal.psu.edu/sbj4/aquarium/aquarium.html


sanjay.