More lighting questions/ballast/bulb combinations

[BCOrchidGuy]

I got a good deal on two 48 inch 175 watt MH units, both had some rust on the boxes the ballasts are in so I've opened one up to clean it. One is a hamilton, two 175 and the two fluorescents, it's a retrofit kit. The other is a Coralife unit, two seperate boxes, one for two MH ballasts and one for the fluorescents.
It says it's recommended for M57 or H93, what exactly does that mean.

Doug

[Delphinus]

ANSI M57 is 175W probe start halide. H39 is 175W mercury vapor. I don't know about all 175W ballasts are like this, but I've noticed that all my 175W ballasts are both M57 and H39.

The only potential gotcha is that a lot of bulbs these days run better on pulse-start ballasts which are M137 for 175W. I run my Ushio's on M59's because that's what I have, done this for like 4-5 years now, but this year with the new set of bulbs I'm using I am starting to have issues where the lights don't ignite right away. Sometimes they light right away but other times they can take anywhere from 1 minute to 15 minutes or worse to ignite and stay lit. It's a minor nuisance, the lights do light up eventually, but it's something I plan to address somewhere in the long-term (either switching to a different light combo or at elast upgrading the ballasts if nothing else). Pulse-starts will be easier on the bulbs, hopefully improving their longevity, supposedly they are a little better too but I don't know how they "truly" compare in terms of intensity and power consumption.

I don't know why this year is different from previous years. I never had problems getting my previous lamps to ignite. Maybe my ballasts are getting old or maybe bulbs are getting more fussy; or maybe I was just lucky before and didn't know it. I didn't even know there was such thing as "pulse start" before a year or two ago.

Basically, if that's what you got, there's nothing wrong to use them, but when you decide what bulb to use, read the specifications carefully and if the recommended ballast is M137 then be aware you might have issues getting the lights to start.

[BCOrchidGuy]

Thanks Tony, I'm going to open up the Coralife unit today and see what ballasts are in there, maybe I'd just be better off selling the ballasts off and buying something better... maybe even going electronic if I can find a decent deal.

One question about your bulb problems, now understand I don't know squat about this but, wouldn't the capacitor be the thing that wears out? I know in older fluorescents we used to have to replace the "starters" which were capacitors.

Doug

[BCOrchidGuy]

I spoke with Al Brite, the sales man says he doesn't understand how the M137 can replace the M57, he says the 57 has an internal ignitor but the 137 doesn't and the add on ignitor has different characteristics. He doesn't recommend the change. That being said, the prices are out of this world reasonable. M137 is $79 with everything, including a couple mounting brakets etc.. if I wanted to go to the 250watt the M58 is $65 again, everything included.

I guess I've got some thinking to do.

Doug

[Delphinus]

My take on this is, each bulb manufacturer has built their bulbs to work on a certain ballast. I think it's actually a bit more complicated than that, there's things like starting voltages and running voltages and European built bulbs were designed with 50Hz in mind not 60Hz and all kinds of issues that can make your head swim (well ... they make MY head swim ....). But anyways. Point being that there's M57 and M137 and what's the significance. The way I look at it is, there will be a recommended ballast to use for a particular bulb. So pick the bulb you want to use, or pick a number of bulbs you may want to use, and then look up what ballasts you can use. So for example I use Ushio's on my own tank. We can go to www.ushio.com and find the bulbs specs online over there at http://www.ushio.com/files/Aqualite%200802.pdf and look up the recommended ballast and it says "M137."

The only thing about pulse-start ballasts is that they have a third component, the ignitor, and you need to watch out for something here. The typical ignitor may have a "BTL" rating of 2 feet. This means that the length of the wiring between the ballast and the lamp can not exceed two feet. That's not really going to work out for us aquarists unless we like the idea of putting the ballast in our canopy (probably not a good idea ). So instead what you have to order is a "long range" ignitor and these tend to be good for 20 feet or so, which, given the average length for us probably being around 6-8 feet, gives us a very comfortable margin. But expect the ignitor itself to cost around $30-40, so bear that in mind.

I'm not really the one to talk about this sort of stuff as my understanding of the issues only really barely scratches the surface. And I'm certainly not one to talk, given that I run my Ushio's on M57's. For the longest time, I told myself, if it aint broke don't fix it. And I've been fine, in my opinion, for a long time. It's only this year that there have been hiccups with my lighting, but I consider them only minor issues since the lights still basically work fine. And like you pointed it could just be old capacitors for all I know ... maybe the solution is just replacing those, who knows.

Ultimately, if the ballasts make your lights work, and you're happy with that, don't worry about it any further. But if you WANT to investigate this further, be content knowing there's a wealth of info out there waiting to be learned (I honestly had no idea, but I think you can take COURSES on this sort of thing!!)

[BCOrchidGuy]

A Course?? omg that's just to funny. Yes it makes my head swim too, I wish the makers of halogen lights would get the halides together and make some 10,000k halogens then lets see what happens to MH prices.

For the price of those electronic ballasts from Ottawa that just may be the ticket, albeit more expensive than I had hoped.

Thanks for all the info Tony

Doug

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by BCOrchidGuy

I spoke with Al Brite, the sales man says he doesn't understand how the M137 can replace the M57, he says the 57 has an internal ignitor but the 137 doesn't and the add on ignitor has different characteristics. He doesn't recommend the change. That being said, the prices are out of this world reasonable. M137 is $79 with everything, including a couple mounting brakets etc.. if I wanted to go to the 250watt the M58 is $65 again, everything included.

I guess I've got some thinking to do.

Doug

you'll find a lot of the places we are looking for parts at don't realy have a clue how thin gs will work togeather and all they realy knows is that the book says that a M57 bulb needs a M57 ballast. the problem is that most of the bulbs in the fish tank world are moddles off of german specs so what we think is a M57 bulb realy isn't but it happened to work on a M57 ballast for lack of better understanding. now companies are starting to admidt that the bulb will last longer on different ballast and people are looking into things more than they used to.

you can add a starter to a M57 but this will not make it the same as a M137, there are differences in the way and levels the voltage and current are applied also.

Steve

[BCOrchidGuy]

Sorry Steve I'm just not clear on this, So if I got the M137 ballast would I need to add the ignitor or not?
The guy did say clearly, if the bulb is recommended for a M57 I'm not sure the M137 would work, but, I'm not the guy who designs them I'm just the sales man.

Doug

[StirCrazy]

137 is a pulse start right? if so when you buy it you want it to come with the ignightor and the cap.

Steve

[BCOrchidGuy]

That's what I understand, but the fellow at Al Brite says the ignitor for the M137 is quite different than the built in ignitor with the M57... I thought you were saying that I wouldn't need the ignitor with the M137.

I'm going to pick up a reflector and a couple of bulbs tomorrow and I'll see what comes of the set up.

Doug