Christy, the only way to be sure there is not a fault in the power at your home, is to take the set up to a different house and plug them in. use a simple LUX meter to measure the light intensity at your house and at the different house.

As for the bulbs what kind are they? I personaly suspect a bulb/ballast combanation problem myself

Steve

The bulbs are 250W Iwasaki 6500K. They are the bulbs without the resistor. I was just going to use them temporarily until I could afford new bulbs. I guess I am going to have to afford them sooner than I thought.

Christy :)

If you suspect the mag12, have you tried turning the pump off for a while and see if you notice a difference with the lights?

I don't know how to diagnose a faulty capacitor. If it was the capacitor, I would have guessed you'd be having problems starting, not overall intensity. But that's just a completely uneducated guess on my part.

Can you try a new bulb? I mean, like a completely new bulb. I guess that's not ideal since if that's not it and you have to buy a bulb just to try then you're out the $$$ and not really any further ahead. I guess about the only other thing to try is see if someone can lend you another ballast for an afternoon, play around with that and see if there's any difference.

Good luck, let us know if you find anything out.

I did try plugging the lights into an outlet on a different circuit but there was no noticeable difference in intensity of the bulbs. I did a bulb swap last night (just about forgot about that) and the color difference is definitely due to the bulbs (one is bluer and one is more yellowy like the 6500K should be). I'm thinking these bulbs have had it as well, I just thought they were younger so I'd try them but it seems they are old and crusty as well. So I'll be getting new bulbs as the next test. Then I will have to go from there if that isn't the problem. Good thing I'm made of money :rolleyes:

Tony, did you ever find out where you could get the H37 ballasts??

Christy :)

Ok next question, do you know which brand and model number your ballast are?

Steve

Once I realized the part # of an Advance ballast that was H37 and not both H37/M58, I just figured I could go to the corner-store lighting supplier and get them there. (I had assumed that since my H37/M58 combos are Advance, that Advance mustn't make "just H37's" :redface: ... not realizing that Advance has about 1000 different models for every ballast designation you can dream of.. :lol: ) I haven't yet pursued it beyond that.

Also one thing I forgot to mention (but you probably know it alreays) was that the bulbs without the resistores burn less blue than the bulbs with the resisters. So comparing a new bulb with out the resistor against a older bulb with the resister will make the older bulb look nicer..

but it could be the bulbs or it could be the ballast.. if it is a cheep ballast then it could be running the bulbs a little off and burning them out a little faster.

Steve

I don't have the ballast info here. I did write it down last night though and left the paper at home as I had emailed albright to see what they had to say about it.

Steve, yes I knew about the resistors. I have a pair of the non-resistor type in right now, Jack took the other resistor set back up to courtenay with him. He says they're much whiter. I asked him about intensity but he hasn't responded yet. The comparison I'm making is between two non-resistor bulbs. One is yellow and the other is blue. Now without the actinics both are yellowy but one is brighter.

I don't know about it being a cheap ballast or not. I'll get the info for you after I get off work.

Christy :)

Hey Christy,

The "R" bulbs are sooo much nicer. What a difference.

I don't see a loss of intensity but maybe a hair... and with that said, it's probably just my imagination. These bulbs are so much whiter than the old version. I wonder what brand new bulbs look like.

If you want these bulbs back let me know, I'm gonna order soon.

Brad, we asked if you'd built us reactors and you said sure.... that was in January :razz: lol

You just got bumped another month :razz: