Posted 16 September 2005 - 03:08 PM
1) I would say from a safety standpoint the eballast is "safer" (two wires in, two wires out... and a ground), but specifically there is no capacitor to deal with wiring. (cap's can kill if handled improperly). "Better" ? .... that opens up a large can of worms... better to give you some general details and decide for yourself which one is "better" ... the eballast is ligher, more effcient (by efficent I mean it uses less electricity for the same lamp that a coil and core will use), simple to wire, more expensize, and produces better lamp life (supposedly) than coil and core. Coil and core is less expensive, more rugged and reliable, heavy, and requires more parts and wiring than an eballast. Coil and core's are ok to mount inside the box when cooled properly, eballast are not recommended to be mounted inside a box. I think that hits most of the highlights, so it's up to you to decide. This is a somewhat touchy topic at the moment, so i'm sure others will chime in here with "eballasts are the greatest" and others with "eballasts suck". I'm not in either camp on this one, I only suggest that you look at the facts and determine what is best for you.
2) most retailers will not carry these types of ballasts as these lamps are used mostly for commercial buildings, parking lots, anywhere lots of cheap light are required. best bet would be to find a electrical supply "depot" of sorts that deals with contracters, and also sells retail. I think most stick to the internet as there are better deals.
3) if you decide to use an eballast, I would suggest the following:
a. mount it externally or in the front part of your PJ (i.e. away from the lamp)
b. mount it horizontal (only a guess on my part, but perhaps some of the trouble with peoples eballasts are that they mount them vertically and the internal components don't cool properly)
c. provide some small amount of cooling over the heat sink fins to provide additional cooling over simple convection. (i use a simple CPU fan from an old pentium chip, ya know, the really small ones used about 5 years ago.)
d. be sure to wire both input and output with brown as hot, blue as neutral. (others will say input doesn't matter, but that statement doesn't matter, it should be wired as per electrical codes [read: "proper way"] with brown as hot, blue as neutral; period; you will never go wrong this way)
... aluminum flashing has more to do with protecting the wood/components from the heat of the lamp, whether you decide on an eballast or coil-n-core. some use high temp paint rather than flashing to protect the wood, but most all use flashing of some sort to protect electrical devices and wiring from getting too hot due to direct exposure to the lamp.
4) MH bulbs and ballast, each have their own wattage and ANSI rating. (examples are M155, M59, etc..) In the case of the Ushio S400DD, it has a rating of S51. It is a simple matter of making sure that the ANSI rating of your lamp (and wattage), matches the ANSI rating (and wattage) of your ballast. This applies to using coil-n-core ballasts. When using the LL eballast, it will work with all MH lamps rated for 400W, and the Ushio S400DD. I don't know about other eballasts ??
Beer... not just for breakfast anymore.
Sign In
Register
Help
MultiQuote
)
Just didn't want to get into a big theory discussion and not answer ducktapes original questions.