Hydro-Farm 1000w Ballast and Radium bulb

[pontiac2002gtp]

Would the radium bulb work ok on the Hydro-Farm 1000w Powerhouse ballast? What would the bulb life be?

[PaulErik]

The Radium 20,000K 1000-watt lamp requires a HQI (European) ballast to operate properly. The Hydro Farm PowerHouse ballast is a standard North American ballast and will not operate the Radium lamp properly. A standard North American ballast does not provide a high enough starting/ignition voltage to start the lamp reliably and does not provide high enough operating current to the lamp. When the lamp does light on that ballast the output is reduced by almost 50 percent. The last company to offer a 1000-watt HQI ballast in North America was PFO Lighting but they are no longer in business.

[PaulErik]

If you want a 20,000K 1000-watt lamp that does operate properly on a standard North American (ANSI M47) ballast you may want to look into the Ushio Colorlite Blue lamp (Ordering code: 5001189 / Lamp code: UHI-S1000BL). This lamp is similar to the Radium 20,000K lamp.

[Stoney G]

What about a 1000 watt Galaxy? I know it won't burn it at full capacity but the 400 Radium works good on the 400 watt Galaxy.

[PaulErik]

The Radium 1000-watt lamp electrical specification is very different compared to the lamps the Galaxy and other electronic ballasts are designed to operate in North America. The electronic and magnetic ballasts available in North America are designed for standard North American type lamps.

North American 1000-watt metal halide specification (ANSI M47/M141):

Lamp operating current: 4.1A Nominal

Lamp operating voltage: 263V Nominal


Radium 1000-watt lamp (Standard European lamp) specification:

Lamp operating current: 9.5A Nominal

Lamp operating voltage: 120V Nominal

Metal halide lamps require current limiting and precise lamp current control during starting, warm up and operation. The 1000-watt versions have a large difference between the two different types. The 250-watt and 400-watt lamps only have a few percent difference in the versions which does not affect the operation as much. Using North American type ballasts on a European 1000-watt lamp will cause the lamp to operate off spec meaning the lamp degrades at an increased rate, light output and light color produced will be off. Depending on the ballast the ballast operating life will be reduced as well because the ballast is unable to operate as it was designed to.