Hamilton T-5 Retro kit

[Herndog]

I bought the Hamilton 4 x 54 watt T5 HO retro kit. It comes with the bulbs and one big reflector and two large ballast boxes. I built a wooden box for them with no fan or lens and never really liked it. I decided to buy the $99 Aquabuys compact Flourescent light with 260 watts , 8 blue leds, 2 tiny fans, 3 cords and 3 switches because the fixture looked nice. I have it on tank now and it looks much better and a little brighter although it gets almost too hot to touch anywhere. It is nice for the price though.

Anyway I took apart the black ballast boxes for the Hamilton and each one has a Workhorse 5 ballast in it. My question is this, there is only two red wires being used from each ballast and the other two are sitting there not capped(real safe) huh. So doesn't this mean they only have 32 watts going to each bulb instead of 64 if you wired two reds together. Am I right? If so no wonder they weren't that bright. My first experience with hamilton and I am not impressed.

I may be selling the setup minus the bulbs since the ends of a couple came loose from the glass. The whole setup is about 5 months old if anyone is interested but I want to hook the reds together and see how bright it is-would you do this? Does it sound right albeit a little overdriven? If so I may gut the aquatraders fixture and put the t-5s in it and it should be really bright even with a single reflector.

What do you think?

Mike

[luke33]

Wow man, your all over the place here! lol, no worries. As for hooking up the red wires. Doesn't sound like a good idea. The hamilton t5's aren't good. The aquadeal light is just an odyssea light the same as aquatraders and the same company as well. The aquatraders fixture isn't a t5 fixture its a t6, and it won't work with t5 bulb's. I'm pretty sure this is correct. Good luck!

[Herndog]

Killing 3 birds with one post(all over the place). The CF light I bought is aquatraders sorry for the mistake. For $99 it is an awesome light-so far-knock on wood.

I do think the Hamilton retro is wired to run the 4 bulbs at 32 watts each and if I tie the two unused reds into the used reds it will run the bulbs at 64 watts. The only question then is can the 54 watt hamilton bulbs handle 64 watts each.

I will be complaining to Hamilton for false advertising because they are running the bulbs at 32 watts each for a total of 128 watts and not their advertised 216 watts unless they can prove different. This is wrong. Now I know why the light never seemed bright as other 4 bulb t5 fixtures I have seen on here.

I DO NOT SUGGEST ANYONE BUY THE HAMILTON T5 RETRO. It is bad enough that it has one large reflector but now I find it is only running at 128 watts. Also the sockets do not hold the bulbs very well or seal very well. Also the ends of the bulbs with the pins come loose from the glass bulb.

Mike