
Originally Posted by
Xytrell
I have a few spare HID bulbs and ballasts without enclosures and I just wanted to know if it was feasible to just throw the ballast in the box and plug a conventional floor lamp into the box with the bulb (either MH, MV, or HPS) screwed in to the base usually meant for incandescents. Is the voltage rating of a conventional socket too low for what is supplied for an HID bulb (specifically the starting pulse of an HPS)? Will 10 ft. of lamp cord have some detrimental effect on safety and/or performance with regards to extra capacitance and/or inductance? I have a 70W HPS set, and a 175W MH and MV set.
Thanks
Since your in the states, I can assure you the $3.75 home depot ceramic socket does quite well with 70, 135, and 175 W MH and the 7ow HPS. The up armoured one with the screw on ceramic top and bottom does even better.
MH dumps out a lot of heat, so beware of fixtures that cannot shed it, which means most domestic fixtures.
Above those wattatges, get the HV pulse socket.
I used to use MH for basic lighting for high speed cameras at the university, and I bought the HD sockets for the purpose with both six KV pulse start and normal metallic ballested lamps.
keep the cords to less then 6 feet after the ballast and use 600V rated wire. Lamp cord often breaks down, but good quality rubberized SO-J did not. Surprisingly you often need a ground near the fixture to aid in starting on non pulse start lamps.
And If you ever want to do photography with a MH at 4000 frames per second, I love the IceCAp aquarium Metal Halide Ballasts, as well as the Mercron ballasts. Icecap runs at 22 khz, and mercron at 18 Khz.
Steve
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