Retrofitting Jebo/Odyssea fixture

[sales weasel]

Hello all,
I have one of those $100 Jebo/Odyssea 48" 260w PC fixtures. I've had it for probably 8-9 months and just took it out of the box. I opened it, plugged in the four pc tubes and turned it on. I wasn't surprised to see that the lights weren't very good, flickered quite a bit and were not evenly lit. It does have a decent reflector and I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried to retro fit one of these w/a MH bulb?

[Reefdaddy1]

I did it with 2 of those units, I used the reflector from both, Installed 2 more power cords and split the Ballasts into indivdual units, Now each ballast has its own power cord. Cost me 8 dollars to do it and have not looked back since. The wiring is easy. Ground is right on the ballast. I use eight 55w PC on this tank. No sense throwing it away, So why not reuse it. Just make sure its high enough off the water if you dont use a screen to block the water. those end caps are not water proof.

[sales weasel]

Reefdaddy1,
That sounds linterestiing. Mine has three power switches: 1 for actinic, 1 for 6500 and 1 for moonlights. However, it has only one power cord.

So are you only using PC lighting in it or did you add a MH? I've seen pics that have two actinics and two 150w or 175w MH bulbs. I just wonder if this thing could handle the heat.

[JimR]

The new ones have 3 switches and 3 cords. I havent set my tank up yet, but I did test the lights. No flickering, looked good.

[Reefdaddy1]

Theren is onl;y one power cord because them ballasts are bridged together. I disasembled the bridge and connected power cords to each ballast. I removed the switches totaly. I am running them on timers so there was no need for switches. I use only PC on that tank I did this to. I am not fan of MH with in my house because I have 8 tanks currently and 10 comming up. Power consumption is a concern along with heat, T5, PC, and VHO are all I run, No need for MH I have grown great looking clams with VHO, so why bother.

[jobob]

i retro fitted mine with mh. its on a 55gal so i didnt have much room. i ended up cutting the reflector in half long ways and fitting them end to end, then had the mh behind them. then with the other 2 i put them in the middle of the mh, useing the mh reflector.the jebo light was $80 and 4xnew actinics(the older model has cheap actinic)$80 and mh2x175retro fit(fleabay)$200, and $50 for wood and hinges.$410 total, but i had the jebo and the new bulbs already. so it was only $250 to upgrade to metal halide. i dont think i would get anything other than mh since i saw the difference.!! it looks kinda like this.http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/582/94913canopy_drawing.JPG

[sales weasel]

Thanks guys.
jobob, 4 questions about your retro:
1. Did you mount yours inside a wood canopy?
2. How high did you mount it above the water?
3. Do you find it necessary to run 4 actinics?
4. Did you add any glass or acrylic back to the Jebo to cover the lights? Mine has a thin piece of acrylic.

Reefdaddy1:
I'm going to do the same thing you did with the ballasts and add separate power cords. BTW, Jebo now has a T5 assembly. I've seen them on ebay for $108. They have 4 54w bulbs.

I was going to just look into T5 lighting. Then I got a a pair of Advance ballasts and 175MH bulbs, sockets and cords for $99 ea on 3bay. Before I knew it, I had bought them.

[jobob]

well the whole canopy is about 10in high. and the mh hang down about 2in. so about 8in above the water. the mh reflectors i screwed right to the wood and the pc i put pieces of wood so the reflector hangs down about 1in. so they are closer to the water. well u could use only 2 actinics but i like the color of all four. i had only use 2 for the first 2 weeks then i remembered i had 2 other pc. so i put them in. no i didnt use any acrylic to cover the bulbs. they are about 8in off the water and i havent had any spashes yet. its been about 7months now.kinda like this http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/582/94913canopy_side.JPG

[jobob]

i had bought one of those t-5 ho fixtures for my 29gal. i ended up changing the actinics(they were blue) i like the 03 for the glow. and the ballast were external. u mite wanna get new reflectors cause they arent the wrap around kind. but other than that i like them.

[sales weasel]

Thanks jobob,
I think I'm going to build a 4' long pendant instead of a canopy. I'm going to have a few fish in this tank and I'd like to have easy access for feeding. I think I can control the heat a little better that way. Another thing I want to check out is the reflector in the Jebo. I need to be sure it's not shiny plastic;)

[jobob]

the way i made mine is i have an open back, well i have a 1 1\2in piece of wood goin across the back. and i put 2x3in fans hanging from that strip of wood, those fans werent that good so i hooked up a 6in clip-on fan to it. and the door is on the front. so it opens upward. i was goin to put the door on the top but with a 10in canopy i could get in to feed them. so the door in the front helps alot. i have a 24in pendant style canopy hanging over my 29gal. and i find it easier to work on my 55 with the open door that moving the hanging one out of the way. unless u put it on rails. then it would be easier to move it.

[Reefdaddy1]

All my Canopys are open topped, for air circulation, High temp with any of my lights is 80. Just make canopy open top and add eggcrate for fish security, Its easy to to do.

[mech]

hey guys, I just got a workhorse 5 for my jebo 2x54w fixture, the external ballast went out and i was a little leary of it, I was going to mount the wh in an external box I was going to make, turns out that a wh 5 fits fine in the jebo ballast box, it just took 2 small cuts with a tin snipper

i have a quick question, do i just run the ground to the wh 5 casing?

thanks!

[mech]

well, i wired up the ground to the case anyway and fired up the unit, works great,

now I can actually trust my jebo unit, the build quality of the fixture was nice, but the ballast was a POS, now I have no complaints, I almost got an icecap but now I am glad I didnt, since now I get to use all the stock wiring, switches etc with a nice ballast that is almost plug and play and looks as clean as the original setup..

total mod cost,

$65 jebo odyssea 2x54w T5 fixture
$22 for the workhorse
$2.25 for heat shrink tube at radioshack

done!

[jobob]

not bad, i havent had any problems with my odessya t-5 ballast. but, $22 to fix isnt bad at all.

[mech]

i ran it for about 8 hours today, the tempertaure of the workhorse was much more reasonable than the stock ballast, the fixture itself got really warm, more so than stock, not hot enough to be painful to touch, but im sure the bulbs would last longer under better conditions, I still cant find a small enough fan for it, i found a 17mm fan but it only pushes .7 cfm which seems inadequate, I cant seem to find a small centrifugal blower...

light output is nice, I dont have a meter but next to my other tank, i think the output is higher than the jebo ballast, pretty cool mod...

[vtrieu88]

where did you pick up your workhorse ballast?

[jobob]

hellolights.com sells them

[Shade00]

Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but I can't find any Workhorse ballasts at Hellolights. I found the Workhorse 5 for $28.99 at Innovative Lights. Anyone ordered from them?

[jobob]

http://diyreef.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=66&products_id=223
Sorry hellolights sells Advanced not Workhorse, but diyreef got them. $28 isnt bad their $33 here