Iwasaki and regular MH ballasts

[Sparrow]

Just wondering if I run 250watt iwasaki bulbs on a regular MH ballast will that damage the bulb? Someone told me that Iwasaki voids the warantee if you run it on a regular ballast. tia.

[Bart]

I am a little curious on this one also. Does anyone know the answer to this one?

[Pikaboo]

I'm looking at the only slip of paper that came w/ the bulb... and it doesn't mention any waranty at all..... it does mention "this lamp should be used with the mercury ballast of reactor or lag type. Never operate w/ the lamp regular (CW) or autoregulator (CWA) type."

*shrugs*

I'm using mine w/ PFO regular MH ballast (not Iwasaki specific) seems to be working fine.

[Cookoopod]

Maybe I can chime in and help you all out.

I power 2-250 EYE bulbs (6500k Iwa's) with the standard MH ballast. Did not go with the mercury vapor ballast due to the non-compatibility of using other brand of bulbs. The MV ballast is more efficient than the std MH ballast but is not significantly. Most suppliers sell the std. MH ballast to power the EYE bulbs.

[Still Reefs]

Hello all,

The Iwasaki 6500K Bulb is a MV bulb designed for use on the MV ballast but will work on standard MH ballasts (we all do this.) The bulb DOES run brighter and longer on a MV ballast but not more "efficient." The 250w Metal Halide ballast uses 2.5 amps at 250 watts and the Mercury Vapor ballast uses 6.85 amps at 250 watts! The folks at PFO suggest a separate breaker JUST for the MV. This talked me out of Mercury Vapor ballasts really fast. I run a 250w 6500K Iwasaki on a PFO 250w MH ballast box with no trouble.

Hope this helps shed some light!
LATER!

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Sean Bradley
Photographer : Still Reefs Photographic Productions (http://stillherps.herpexchange.com/stillreefs)

[Vins Fins]

I am running the pfo mv ballast. it runs 4.4 amps per 250 watts, not 6.6 amps. the bulbs are between 15 to 20 % brighter with the mv ballast. I just became a distributer for pfo
lighting. I like the way the bulbs look running on the mv ballast. no green tint,
I'm also supplementing them with 220 watts of PC german actinic. makes a nice blue/white spectrum.

Vinny

[Still Reefs]

Vinny,

If you just became a PFO dealer then you should have the PFO Catalog. Refer to pg. 14 of the PFO Distributor Catalog and you will read that the 250EYE MV Ballast draws 6.85 amps max at 120v powering a 250w lamp. If this is not correct I suggest PFO be informed but it seemed to me that they know what they are talking about. I am a PFO dealer also and ordered my set-up directly from PFO.

LATER!

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Sean Bradley
Photographer : Still Reefs Photographic Productions (http://stillherps.herpexchange.com/stillreefs)

[Ironreef]

I agree with still reefs Pfo and premiumaquatics convinced me that regular pfo was better because it used less energy and not limited to bulb option. if i was gonna run only one bulb I would have got an e-ballest but that was before blueline and the controlor problems. I would get pfo regular ballast now if I did it again.Which I did in the first place.

[KW]

I have run Iwaskis on both types of ballasts. The bulbs do look better on the MV ballasts. The MV ballasts only cost $30.00 each.

ttyl,
KW

[Sparrow]

Kw,

What's the ballast model number?

[ASH]

The "250EYE MV Ballast draws 6.85 amps max at 120v powering a 250w lamp" means that at startup it uses up to 6.85 amps. That may last seconds.
A conventional ballast has to build up a 3 to 5KV jolt to start a lamp. Other electronic ballasts do the same thing to the bulb, just use a different method to achieve it. IceCap has a method of using a high frequency 1KV signal to start the lamps. As the lamp warms up the power to it increases. That's one reason an IceCap can be 100 feet away from the MH bulb, 1KV travels better than 5KV. The other issue I'm aware of is the HZ (on/offs per second) the bulbs run. Conventional and most other run at 60 or 120 HZ, so that many times per second on and off. IceCap runs at 15,000 to 20,000 HZ (15-20KHz) and therefore just stays on.
Last time I spoke to Iwasaki's R&D MH specialist he thought our method would tend to increase the lamps life.
As far as output, the IceCap MHI runs at 285 watts with 97% of that going to the bulb. That's why the ballasts run cool. Maybe someone has run output comparisons and can comment on the light.
Andy

[Vins Fins]

Sean

I turned to page 14 and they say 6.85 amp draw for a single fixture.So i got my amp meter out and tested it. The ballast draws 6.3 amps on start up and the drops down to 4.4 amps normal running.The reason i said this earlier in my post was because my ballast is marked 4.4 amps and it's written by hand, so i think they may actully measure each one in the factory.
As for everyone who is not using the correct ballast,you guys are missing out on the full potential of the iwaski bulb.I believe that iwaski is not finished making bulbs, maybe next year they will have a 10 k mv bulb.

I also tested the bulb with my cheap lux meter(the one that Larry and everyone else has) the bulb measured 85000 lux on the highest meter setting.

Vinny


[This message has been edited by Vins Fins (edited 03-26-2000).]