found a good writeup on overdriving ballasts

[miatawnt2b]

http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/overdrv1.html

I was looking for a good and cheap method to fire my 65W PC bulb since the ballast cooked itself and I came across this article. Turns out I had 4 of these Sunpark SL15 ballasts laying around from my old 55gal hood that I had made before switching to T5's. So I started to experiment with this ballast. It is pretty sweet indeed. It fires the 65W PC bulb brighter that the standard ballast (Obviously at 2x overdrive) It's going to be great for my sump.

I was so pumped that I started to experiment with some t5 bulbs. This ballast wired in 2x overdrive blazes a single T5 HO 54W really really well. I am thinking about using 4 of these SL15's firing T5HO54W and a Standard T5HO 2 tube ballasts firing a pair of actinics over my 90. I think it will be plenty of light for SPS and soft corals.

These ballasts are found in the $10 shop lights that HD sells. They will work great for a DIY retro T5 setup. I would live to see some numbers (Grim are you busy? :)) with this ballast on a 54WHOT5 and how it compares.

-J

[mnestroy]

Howdy, i'm new to this stuff, i was wondering if this is someting I can do on my fixture...

I have a dual 36" Standard Fluorescent (30 Watts T-12) fixture. The balast I have no clue what they are, but I have two that sit on the floor under the tank, and each one has its own power plug, they then go into the fixture and each bulb has its own on/off switch.

[miatawnt2b]

you cannot wire the outputs 2 individual ballasts together to do this. Did you read the article?
-j

[mnestroy]

Yes I read the article, it was not 100% clear to me... which is why I asked.