dismanteling Glo units

[mike31154]

I dismantled my two lamp 36" GLO a while back so I could use the reflector for 2 MH lamps that I ghettoed up over my tank. Didn't take any photos unfortunately. The ballast is quite long & narrow and as Myka mentioned you can mount it externally (or in a hood) no problem as long as you use safe wiring practices. This includes grounding the metal case of the ballast. You'll see that the grounding wire for the ballast is screwed to the housing, just use the same wire and attach it to a good ground when you wire up the retro.

The other thing to watch for is the distance from ballast to lamp, you don't want to extend that too far since not all ballasts are designed for 'remote' mounting, they may have trouble firing the lamps. If you do need to extend the wiring, make sure it's at least 18 guage, solid wire, not stranded. IIRC, I popped the top off the ballast casing and it was completely potted inside, that is all the components are sealed in 'tar' so it's quite water resistant. Don't think a box is required for the ballast, just make sure the case is grounded and the top is secured so it doesn't fall off. If you don't pop it off like I did, it should be fine. You'll need to stick to the same size & number of lamps too, don't try to add another lamp or use a 48 if your GLO is a 36.