hps-mh????

[rottenfork]

bought a 400w ballast and a hps bulb,for a plant that i brought inside to flower last year. now i have started a new grow so i got a mh bulb and just screwed it in. it seems to be working fine the plants are two weeks old and healty. But i have been reading through a few threads and seen people talking about hps ballasts and mh ballasts im a bit confused the guy in the shop didnt tell me what sort of ballast it was ,am i ok to keep going ???? dont know much about this stuff, anyone shed some light on this situation (hee hee) ??????

[iblodro4220]

im new at it to man but look at the bulb and see if somewhere on it it says "MH Conversion" cuz i have a HPS ballast and have a "MH Conversion" in it and i know thats ok....

[iblodro4220]

what kinda soil u using? hows it working?

[rottenfork]

using good old irish moss peat with25% perlite, superthrive 1mm per 4 litres and just started to introduce bio-grow 2mm per litre ill increase it up to 5mm in the coming weeks, going to veg on 18/6 for another few weeks, heres a pic i took 5 mins ago, the ballast must be ok for mh and hps,everything seems to be going well, just hope it doesnt explode and burn the place down!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is day 19

[iblodro4220]

look nice man! yea i hear ya on the explosions lol for some reason ive alsways been intimidated by those bulbs you know hps are like glass granades if you drop em.....im using peat humus.....

[UMrocksmysocks]

yo rotten, you really need to check if the MH bulb is a conversoin bulb for a HPS ballast, or something bad is likely to happen. ive never done it before so idk if it would work to put a regular MH bulb into a HPS ballast.. either way, tho, you should check it out ASAP. burning your house down for a couple of plants isnt worth it lol

[Tokudai]

Regular metal halide bulbs will work in an HPS ballast setup - It will shorten the lifetime of them though. A MH ballast and capacitor, and an HPS ballast and capacitor are the same thing - the only difference is HPS has an igniter and the ballast usually has an extra line for this igniter.

HPS bulbs are under, well, high pressure, therefore need the additional voltage to arc and ignite. The MH does not need this extra power, but its still there on startup cause of the igniter - so an HPS ballast setup is much harder on MH bulbs.

It will work, but for bulb lifetime, get a conversion bulb - otherwise you'll cook em regularly