DIY HO flourecents

Found a very interesting page on re-wiring normal fixtures to run t-5s. This guy might be nuts. Or a genius. :D
http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/overdrv1.html

Genius, definately genius. That makes me want to put 2 tube ballasts into my single tube 20W fluorescent grow lights.

yeah well u need a 4 lamp ballast.

Nice find Scott! I'm gonna give this a try this week and I'll post up with pics and my results.

Yeah, I've got some 2 4 bulb electronic ballasts for a big 4 lamp fixture from where I work. Got the fixture for free and the ballasts cost me $50 with shipping. That with some 26w cfls on the sides will be pretty good for veg. I'll still use the HPS for flowering. I'm thinking aout trying out LEDs for flowering but I'm waiting to hear more other peoples experiences first before I make that kind of investment. CFLs have always worked for me in the past so I'm confident these will work well. I don't have heat probs in my sealed and A/C'd room usually (recently had a timer failure that went un-noticed):( those snow whites are bullet proof. Only six out of ten sprouted but all six appear to be female :stoned:

Bah! My spare ballasts are for the 8-ft units in my shop. I wonder if they'll work... What happens if I drive a 4-footer with 'em?

As far as LED's, I haven't seen any results that convince me they are worth a shit for growing - yet. A couple of people have interesting projects, but noone seems to be able to cop a decent harvest/yeild using LED's alone

I'm curious about running 4' bulbs with 8' ballasts as well. Maybe next project.

Word of warning. I bought my ballasts from United Industries. They appear to be used, beat up and have a generous 1" of wire to work with. Not exactly what I thought I had purchased. I'll let you know if they work or not. Sylvania/Osram QTP4X32T8/UNV ISN-SC.

Well, the ballasts don't work. Atleast the company seems to have forgotten to charge me for them. I suppose I can't bitch too much about it.

Nope, these ballasts are paper weights. Tried every combination 1x 2x 4x and nothing, not even a flicker. Off to Ace Hardware ;)