Old bulbs = Algae problems?

[christyf5]

Hey Tony,

I bought my lighting setup from a guy in Vancouver that advertised it in the buy and sell. He told me he got them shipped straight from Japan. Whatever that means. He had mucho dinero and was switching his lighting setup from 250W to 175W (which is why I thought he had too much money, as well as the "octopus" setup he had just bought with 4 probes, $2000).

Sorry I can't give you any more info than that. I wish I knew where he got them from too.

Christy

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

If I could find a H37 that wasn't also a M58 then I'd just buy it to try it and settle the question in my mind once and for all. Oh well...

According to the Advance catalog, the following are H37 250 watt Mercury vapour ballasts

71A3502,71A3572,71A3592,71A35D2. the difference between the ballasts is whether they are single,tri or quad taps.

[Delphinus]

Thanks ... I'll look those up.

[Bryan]

I called Commercial Lighting and the only thing they have available is a 71A35D2 which is a 250 watt quad tap core and coil H37 ballast. I didn't bother including it in my list. Unfortunately it sells for 95.00.

[Jack]

Tony, that's exactly the reason why I wanted the MV H37 ballasts. I want to run the 250 Iwasaki "crisp white/light blue" effect, like many people have posted on RC. The "EYE" ballast are H37's. I still have no problems with my combo ballast but curiosity has the best of me.

Bryan, what's single, tri, quad, etc tap mean. I don't know what tap means. Is this a newbie question

[Delphinus]

I can answer that question for you!!

Quad tap means there are 4 available .. um .. "tap" configurations (tri tap is another commonly used ballast, then double and single-tap). What this means is there are 4 ways to power the ballast: 120 VAC, 240VAC, 377V and um .. I think 480 is the last choice.

Quad taps seem to be the most common AFAIK. I assume this is because they are the ones produced in the most volume maybe. Basically depending on the (industrial) application the line voltage may be one of several things and it depends on different things.

Basically for our use, we're really interested in the 120 tap only. I imagine one could run ballasts on a 220 circuit intended for stoves and dryers although I don't know if there'd be any real advantage, although I've often wondered about that.

PS. According the EYE Lighting website, even the EYE ballast is a combination halide/mercury ballast...
http://www.eyelighting.com/ballastmercury.html (notice the ANSI column has both M numbers and H numbers for each ballast)

[Jack]

Ah! I get it. Thanks Tony.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I can answer that question for you!!

Quad tap means there are 4 available .. um .. "tap" configurations (tri tap is another commonly used ballast, then double and single-tap). What this means is there are 4 ways to power the ballast: 120 VAC, 240VAC, 377V and um .. I think 480 is the last choice.

FWIW I believe it's 120v,208v,240v,277v. I wonder how they come up with 208 and 277 though.

[Bob I]

FWIW I believe it's 120v,208v,240v,277v. I wonder how they come up with 208 and 277 though.

Those voltages are of no concern to the normal person. They are three phase voltages, and is the voltage between two of the phases. Arrived at by multiplying the supply voltage by the square root of three. IOW 480 times root three, or 600 times root three.

[Jack]

Ah, suddenly all so clear

Mason, we kind of strayed from your topic, but I think it could be your NO flourecents causing the algae. I had a bit of algae on my sandbed once and it dissapeared within a couple of days of changing my two really old 40w actinics.