AbSoluTc Posted July 19, 2003 Author Share Posted July 19, 2003 What is the total cost of this that I need to send to him? 15 + ship + 50 ? Let me know, Kris Link to comment
foo Posted July 19, 2003 Share Posted July 19, 2003 Doh! In addition to the 12 ballasts that I was distributing I had one earmarked for the new tank that I was testing and a backup that I was going to do something with later. I accidentally in my haste reversed the polarity on the power on my backup ballast when I went to test it and I got the light to fire up for a second then *nothing*. I tried again, nothing, corrected the wiring, nothing. Tried the original ballast and the bulb lit up. Oops. Please follow the wiring diagram and don't be an idiot like me. I'm guessing that there's no circuit protection in the ballast to protect itself from people like me doing things like that. I'm going to try it one more time but I think it's toast. Oh well, you don't pay attention then this is what happens, more stuff for the landfill. This is surplus, not consumer electronics. Be warned. AbSoluTc I sent Greywolf an email with your tracking number. He sent me $23.50. I asked him to forward the email to you since I don't have your email. Oh yeah BTW I added tracking to the packages I sent out today, but post office tracking only lets you know it got there not really where it is. Link to comment
LiQuiD Posted July 19, 2003 Share Posted July 19, 2003 Foo, any left? Also, can anyone get a pair of sockets for under $12.50? Link to comment
AbSoluTc Posted July 19, 2003 Author Share Posted July 19, 2003 Liquid- Hellolights has the sockets for 12.50 + shipping. So far they are the cheapest I have seen. I ordered a set about a week ago for about 17.00 bux shipped I think? Link to comment
LiQuiD Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 I figured they were the cheapest. Thanks. So what's up, any 17 dollar ballast left or what? Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 Liquid - I am trying to get something set up with the supplier that Foo got this batch from. We are trying to get small lots to keep him from jacking the price up on them. I should know tomorrow by this time if I can get any more. Will post back to this thread either way. I Don't want to take a list of names before I find out if I can get the units though. Link to comment
foo Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 Many good karma points for Graywolf57. A couple of people have not gotten back to me so I might have one or two available. But I'm giving people who reserved one from me a week to get back to me. I'll release any surplus I have after that time that is provided I don't do anything stupid again. If it happens that I have ballasts to reallocate I'll post to the appropiate thread and let people know. But don't count on anything. Link to comment
mane3215 Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 If you do have some surplus, dont forget about me foo =). If not absolutc, I think I will just go with one of the guys you have. Link to comment
foo Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 mane3215 maybe you want to wat a few days and see what Graywolf57 does. You're in Maryland right? Graywolf57 is in Virginia. Alot closer than California. You'll save a dollar or two on shipping and will pay a dollar or two less if shipped from there. However this is assuming Graywolf57 get's equipment from the guy at the same price I did. The guy could raise the price a little and that would have to be passed along to everyone. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 Yep, the guy still hasn't got back to me. I'm still trying. Will post here as soon as I hear from him. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 20, 2003 Share Posted July 20, 2003 If and when I can get some of these I am not marking them up. I will only look to cover my cost + shipping and any packaging I have to buy if any at all. Link to comment
foo Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 I was using Priority Mail boxes since the USPS gives away Free Packing Material if you use it to ship through them. Well it's sor t of free, I guess the cost is just rolled into the postage rate. Too bad it takes them 3 or more weeks to get the free stuff to you and they make you get 25 boxes at a time so it clutters up your garage. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 I haven't been able to get the supplier to respond to several emails. It is the weekend and maybe he was away. Link to comment
nano neophyte Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 Hey foo .. my ballast arrived today safe and sound. Thanks a million for putting this deal together. Very cool! NN Link to comment
ronl Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 My ballast arrived today too. I bought a Regent 500 watt halogen floodlight fixture this weekend as I heard the 70w DE bulbs will fit without any modification to the fixture. Now I just need to decide on a bulb. I was going to get one of the $25 Catalina 10k bulbs from PSL until I read about all of the problems people have had with them. Someone on Ebay is selling Catalina 20k bulbs for the same price. Has anyone bought one of those bulbs? Is it actually the same bulb that PSL is selling and one of them has the kelvin wrong? Or does Catalina make both a 10k and 20k 70w bulb? Are most people leaning toward the Ushio 10k? I hope that will look ok without any actinics because that is what I am leaning toward now. Does Ushio make a 70w 20k bulb? I'm so confused. Ron Link to comment
AbSoluTc Posted July 21, 2003 Author Share Posted July 21, 2003 RonL- I have purchased the 20k bulb from ebay (have not received it yet tho) and I got a replacement bulb coming from PSL. The replacement from PSL is a Ushio 10k. They have them for 50 bux from what it adds up. I also got my ballast today as well. That was damn quick! Thanks foo and greywolf for all the communication and help. This is what reefing is about! Peace Link to comment
foo Posted July 21, 2003 Share Posted July 21, 2003 Wow I'm suprised the post office was so efficient. I was in the same quandry a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to figure out which bulb to buy. I ended up getting the Ushio because the Aqua Medic bulb was more through hellolights. That's where I was buying the holder and the reflector material so I wanted to get it all in one place. I looked in Ushio's catalog, they only make up to a 10,000K bulb in that package, the UHI-70AQ bulb that can be found at places like hellolights. The eBay 20,000K bulbs I believe are being listed by Catalina but I don't know if anyone has bought them. I didn't buy them because I didn't know about the long term reliability of the bulb. Very tempting at $25 as opposed to $70+. I'm going to add a 13W PC Actinic bulb to get the color the way I want. The Ushio has been making a crisp white color with the ballast, in fact to my untrained eye it looks like the same color the 175W ushio does on my other tank. There's the AquaMedic Aqualine bulb also in a 10,000K that's available. Hellolights sells them for $89 but Dr Fosters has them on clearance right now for $69.99. I was going to try to buy one the next time I scraped together enough things to make an order worth it with those guys. I emailed them and they confirmed that is an AquaMedic bulb. I've heard of other 20,000K bulbs available but have yet to find any. The 70 HQI DE MH is a popular package in Europe and Japan and I think there are some to be found over there. I think Tunze sells a 20,000K bulb with their name on it but I have yet to find anyone on this side of the world that sells it or any other 20,000K bulb (other than Catalina). I'm still hunting for things like those. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 Foo - Got my ballast as well, thanks again for all the coordination in setting this up. Still trying to work with the supplier for additional unit availability. Absolutc - No problem you're welcome. I have a couple of the $25 Catalina 10K bulbs being delivered tomorrow. We'll see if the poor quality is a trend.....interesting they replaced your bulb with an Ushio 10K....I may have to use your contacts at PSL if the Catalina's go south on me. Link to comment
bertz_maru Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 hey foo.... let us know if you find any 20k bulbs.. i would really like to get one.. Link to comment
ronl Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 AbSoluTc, Let us know what you think of the Catalina 20k bulb that you bought on Ebay once you get it. So PSL does have the Ushio bulb for $50? It's not on their website. I wonder if they would sell it for that price if people asked for it by email. If the Catalina 20k has issues, I may just get the AB bulb from Drs. F & S while it is on sale. Isn't it actually a 13k bulb? If so, that should look better on its own compared to the Ushio. Anyone got the AB 70w bulb that can comment? Ron Link to comment
Wasabi Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 foo, Got my ballast today. Thanks again for getting a hold of these and for the great deal. I'll treat you to some saba and Asahi Super Dry next time you're in Tampa. As soon as someone knows of a good low cost 10k bulb to go with our new ballasts, let us know, I'll do the same if I find something. Scott Link to comment
foo Posted July 22, 2003 Share Posted July 22, 2003 AsahiToro, Mmmm saba. And if you're in San Jose I'll treat you to some Toro. Last night I was digging around on the internet and discovered that the 20,000K Tunze makes is actually bade by BLV. BLV is the German arm of Ushio. So BLV (Ushio) does make a blue 70W HQI Double Ended MH M85 bulb! Tunze markets the bulb as "near 20,000K" but it's really a blue bulb. BLV's product code for the bulb is 224124. It does have a nice spike at 450nm but it isn't exactly optimized for aquariums. See the spectral distribution graph. The 20,000K HQI 150W bulb hellolights carries is the big brother of this bulb. Apparantly people like the 150W bulb (BLV 224321)so maybe the 70W bulb is okay. They have similar distributions. I emailed hellolights and they have no plans to carry the blue 70W bulb. I found the bulb online in the UK for about $50US so I might try getting one from there. HQI bulbs are much more common in europe. There also are a lot of fixtures 70W HQI RX7s fixtures to be found chealy over there too. I'm still looking into those. I don't know if the bulb output is better or worse than the Catalina 20,000K. I'm going to try to contact Catalina to see what kind of technical specs they can give me. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Just as a follow-up. I received two of the Catalina 10K bulbs today. I've just hooked up a test rig using the WPI ballast with one of these bulbs. It is running fine right now. I plan to run this test for 3-4 hours and then remove the WPI ballast and insert the Aromat ballast. This first test should give some indication that the WPI ballast will fire and work ok with the 10 K catalina bulb (it won't verify the quality control or life of the bulb obviously) By swapping the ballast I will be duplicating Absolutc's test which may shed some light on the Aromat ballast supporting the Catalina 10K bulb. Will post the results later...let me know if the test should be performed differently or if additional tests should be done....I do not have any other bulb types at the moment to test. Link to comment
Graywolf57 Posted July 23, 2003 Share Posted July 23, 2003 Ronl posted the following info in an earlier post in this thread: "I bought a Regent 500 watt halogen floodlight fixture this weekend as I heard the 70w DE bulbs will fit without any modification to the fixture." I had an similar old 500 watt halogen floodlight fixture I started to use on my test rig. Don't have the box anymore and I see no Manufacturer name. Mine would not work becasue the flat glass tabs on each end of the bulb were hitting the fixture not allowing the contacts to make proper connection, I nicked one of the glass tabs in the process. The problem was distance between the back of the fixture and the center of each contact. The distance between the two contacts will work with the 70Watt DE bulb. I am not saying there will be a problem with the Regent fixture. I post this so Ronl and others trying this type of fixture will watch for this problem, the bulbs are too expensive to waste even at $25 a pop. Also, I haven't been able to compare other 70Watt double ended bulbs to know if glass end tabs are of similar dimensions top to bottom. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.