w00t! My icecap MH ballast compared to Aquamedic

[Lyscer]

I have heard nothing buy good things about the electronic icecap MH ballast and when looking at Sanjays lighting website it appears to have good efficiency and output. My icecap showed up yesterday and here is a size comparison to my current ballast (Aquamedic Oceanlight). Both are 250w.

The backsides of both ballasts are lined up so you can see the length/height differences.
http://aquaaddict.org/Tank/Tank2007/December/ballasts.jpg

I had the icecap fire up 1 light last night because I couldn't take the suspense of it just sitting there right out of the box and it is Soooo quiet when compared to the Aquamedic ballast. This is probably because of the fact that one is electronic and the other is magnetic. But I like quite things. I will take a picture later today when both ballasts (Icecap/aquamedic) are on to see if we can see a visual difference in color between the ballasts.

I'm not trying to prove anything. I am just curious and excited and thought I would post my findings.

[steve414]

I have the same thing the icecap ballast burns my 10k ab bulb more yellow and the hqi ballast is white.Cant wait to see the pics of your 10k. But I to love how quite it is.

[TandN]

TTT

[Lyscer]

For the XM10k I couldn't see a color difference. It looked like the aquamedic was slightly more intense (had a little more shimmer on the bottom) than with the light ran by the icecap. Once again probably due to the fact that magnetic ballasts drive the bulbs a little harder from what I hear/read.

Thanks for the bump. Sorry I haven't posted pics. The person that wanted to buy my Aquamedics couldn't stand not having them any longer and picked them up before I could snap any pics. I am trying to arrange for a friend to let me borrow their aquamedic ballast so I can do some comparisons as soon as my pheonix bulbs get here on Wednesday.

Wednesday I will try to get some pics of the pheonix bulbs on wednesday if I can talk my friend into letting me borrow their ballast.

[TandN]

kool I was wondering I have PFO 400w MH M59 and I just ordered 400w Electronic Icecaps. My PFO's are like 3 yrs old and hum. Also I have a pair of AC 14k's I bought and I hear they work best on HQI and then electronic ballasts.

[woz9683]

Once again probably due to the fact that magnetic ballasts drive the bulbs a little harder from what I hear/read.
The new icecap ballast is technically an HQI, it's actually listed at 265w. So, the output from the two ballasts will be more similar than comparing the magnetic HQI to an old icecap. Still, 265w is less than the 290w that particular magnetic HQI is listed, so there will be a small difference.

[woz9683]

Tanya, for a humming ballast you might want to try getting new capacitors from PFO. I had one of the aqua medic's where the capacitor actually went bad, so I replaced it, and when I flicked it back on it was so quiet I thought I'd wired the new capacitor wrong (there wasn't a bulb plugged into the ballast, so there was no obvious visual clue).

[TandN]

I bought the icecaps already. Thank you for the info though ill look into it JIC I have a new PFO 400w in storgae that was used for about 4 months. Its a single.