[StirCrazy]

oh now where do I start. Don't worry about Tony hacking on me it is all frendly banter... I hope

anyways the best way to go about it is to pick your bulb or style of bulb then match it to a proper ballast.

you part about a european ballast overdriving a bulb is wrong. a euopen ballast will operate a europen bulb properly. bulb like AB, BLV, Ushio and a couple other fall into this catagory. while some of these bulbs have been modifyed with the addition of starter probes in the bulbs, to facilitate starting with non starter equiped ballast, they still operate more corectly on a ballast that closely matches the voltage, current ect specs of the proper ballast. as it sits right now the 250 watt HQI is a proper match for europen bulbs but in the 400 watt arena there is not a proper match to my knowlage as of yet. there for some have chosen to use a son agro style ballast to slightly overdrive the 400 watt bulb which replicats the same output as using a euoropean ballast.

head hurt yet?

you can ask your friend about it but what I have found is most lighting contractors in north america know nothing about euro type ballast or how they run.. except to say "they won't work here" or "you want a what ballast" I have been luckey and found a lighing dealer that would actualy listen to me for more than 5 minuits with out trying to just be polite befor they tell me to hit the skids. after a couple days I finaly got it throught to him as to what I was looking for and why and bam he found me what I wanted.

any questions just ask away and I will do my best to answer, I think lighting has become the passion of this hobby for me and not nessasarly by choice but now I have growen to love it and I even catch my self reading stuff laitly that would put most people to sleep if only I had more money I could set up a test facility....

Tony that was suposed to be No visual sign of needing to be changed yet, I fixed that.

Steve