Metal halides at Lowes hardware?

[uglyamericanV1]

i found some really nice small metal halide lamps at Lowes hardware store....

ok, they are UGLY, but....
much cheaper than aquarium metal halides...
Are these a viable option? You can always change the bulb in a metal halide lamp, so i could just buy a diffrent DE bulb (say a 10000k) and have at it right? They are made for outdoors, but i could splice a cord to it to have it work as a conventional lamp ( or just disassemble a shop light), I also could set up a pendent or suspend it another way to get it far enough from the water to not have too much heat issues as well....
so my question is....

what would be the drawbacks to doing this?

[ScottL4619]

Are you sure they aren't halogen? Lowes and HD both sell a ton of halogen work lamps with double ended bulbs. They have some sort of small built in ballast.

Which also begs another question that I cannot answer. Why can't halogen bulbs be produced in the correct color spectrum for reefs? They are super cheap, bright, and require minimum ballasts. And...they are only like $40 for two huge double ended double bulb domes with ballasts, bulbs, and cords.

[uglyamericanV1]

damn it.....
i told the guy metal halide, he probably showed me halogen.....
i knew it was too good to be true....
well i know i found a 70 watt outdoor metal halide for 60 bucks..sooooooo
i wonder if it is a de bulb that i can get though....

[DarG]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11632187#post11632187 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ScottL4619
Are you sure they aren't halogen? Lowes and HD both sell a ton of halogen work lamps with double ended bulbs. They have some sort of small built in ballast.

Which also begs another question that I cannot answer. Why can't halogen bulbs be produced in the correct color spectrum for reefs? They are super cheap, bright, and require minimum ballasts. And...they are only like $40 for two huge double ended double bulb domes with ballasts, bulbs, and cords.

Halogen bulbs are incandescent. They have a filament that glows, not a gas like metal halides. Halides contain gasses that an electrical arc passes through, not a filament. Different gas mixtures with different halides produce different colors.

basically anyway.

[x2uranium]

ballastwise.com has cheap metal halide ballasts .. cheap as heck if you want your own DIY I would check there.

[uglyamericanV1]

ohhhhhhhhh

any links to full diy site that have all the gear to do it would be great!