fuzzman24 Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 i want to add some actinic lighting to my tank. i have a 96 watt powerquad 50/50 bulb over a 20H tank. i am trying to set it up so i can just run the actinic for a little while in the morning and night. i am making another hood for my lighting and i am wondering if there is anything i can use from my local home depot, menards, or lowes or whatever to power a couple of 24 inch actinic NO bulbs. i have a coralife electronic ballast that would work for sure but i don't want to take it off my 75 freshwater unless there is an easier DIY to power just normal t12 40 watters. so ig uess what i am asking if there an easy ballast to wire and set up for either of those projects. i do also have an extra set of waterproof and caps and wiring laying around too. thanks for any help. Link to comment
glazer Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Yes, Home Depot has a ballast for your two T-12's... less than 10 bucks, made by GE and the wiring diragram is right on the case. Link to comment
BruiseAndy Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 I found that none of the GE ballasts I bought at HD would fire my coralife T-12s so i ended up buying the T8 ballast and it fired em up perfectly. Can't really explain it but now they are running at 64 watts (overdriven) a piece and look awesome. Link to comment
LEEWINK Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 what's 50/50 then ? maybe you should ditch them and get 2 daylights and 2 actinic. :D :D :D cheers, lee Link to comment
Chamkeeper Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 What about a 13W PC or 2 13W PCs. LOTS of "worklights" using 13W PCs, Even Wally-world sells a single 13W for $7, but you would still need Actinic Bulb(s). I use a Lowe's 2x13W PC that came with 6500K Bulbs on my QT tank. Link to comment
glazer Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Hmmm, been a long time since I messed with NO tubes... if memory serves I think that the Coralife tubes are pre-heat style lamp? As in it requires a starter to fire... T-8 and T-12 are different type ballasts.... T-8's will NOT fire on T-12 ballasts but you can fire a T-12 off of a T-8 ballast... anybody confused yet?. I'm starting to be...lol If yer talking about a 24 inch bulb... a T-12 is a 40 watt lamp and a T-8 is a 32 watt lamp. So it's not being overdriven... it's just that a T-8 ballast uses a different frequency, well it's more efficient... Anyway, there are medium based bi-pin T-12 actinics that don't require a starter and you should have no problem obtaining a ballast at the Depot to fire them. AND I'm going to stop now as I said, long time since I messed with NO's and I ain't that fluent in the electronic lingo...lol Link to comment
wetworx101 Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Home depot has a ballast for just under $30 that runs either 3x32 or 2x40...the wiring diagram is even identical, as the ballast is electronic so it does not need starters. (a starter is required depending on if the ballast is electronic (no), magnetic (?), or pre-heat (yes)...not the bulb) I would hook up the ballast with three sets of sockets, that way, you can run either wattage bulb...then again, I've never seen a 32w 48" actinic. Ill be there tomarrow morn anyways so I'll even double check. Link to comment
lizbeth Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Glazer, Andy (thanks Andy) and I are overdriving NO bulbs on Advanced T8 ballasts designed to run 4 bulbs. I'm running 2x on 2 36" T12 bulbs. Mine have been hooked up for 3 hours, haven't burned the house down yet. Everyone knock on wood! Link to comment
BruiseAndy Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Originally posted by lizbeth Glazer, Andy (thanks Andy) and I are overdriving NO bulbs on Advanced T8 ballasts designed to run 4 bulbs. I'm running 2x on 2 36" T12 bulbs. Mine have been hooked up for 3 hours, haven't burned the house down yet. Everyone knock on wood! Been running mine for 3 months with no fires Link to comment
lizbeth Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Originally posted by BruiseAndy Been running mine for 3 months with no fires That's good to know. The ballast is pretty warm but then the ballast for my 2x55 gets cookin' too. The bulbs are just toasty warm, I'm a whimp about heat and I can touch them no problem. Link to comment
glazer Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Cool Liz! Saltwater AND lights!...woohoo (psssst more pics! hehe) Thanks for the info on the ballast deal... I'm going to go dig through some of my junk boxes and see what I got to play with. We (where I used to work) had relatively new lighting in our finishing rooms but OSHA changed some of the requirements for "explosion proof" fixtures and new(again) lighting was installed. I horked all the ballasts and some of the fixtures out of the trash pile for "future possible" projects.... I know there were some fixtures that had 4 and couple that had eight T-8 bulbs in them.... maybe I'll overdrive something!...lol Link to comment
wetworx101 Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 I want to dispell a myth here. The reason NO bulbs are rated what they are is not because you will blow them up if you go higher, you will just burn them out faster. Were talking about stuff that is usually under 1 amp here. You can run a whole lotta juice through a NO bulb, it will just die faster unless you can keep it cool better. I have run a 40w T12 at 160w. Sure, it got hot, but it worked...for a while. Think about how hot normal tungsten or even metal halide bulbs get...and they dont explode because of it. Anyone could all run 40w T12 at 80w all day if it were in a fridge, outside in cold weather, etc...and they would work the same. C'mon, you dont think PC bulbs cost more because of the cool pin/socket or the bent bulb do ya??!! It's the phosphors and gas in the bulbs that need to burn hotter (brighter) and longer that cost more...you could put the stuff in a 40w T12 and it would run close to 200watts most likely...until some idiot sticks a 40w in the same 200w ballast (now we got problems)...so the manufacturers decided to make a new configuration for that and many other reasons...but the cost...the cost is in the phosphors. Hotrod the NO bulbs all you want, just try to keep them cool or their spectrum holding ability and life wont be too long. Link to comment
Fliger Posted February 3, 2003 Share Posted February 3, 2003 That is about the best summation I've ever read on FLO bulbs. Thanks, I hope it's correct, otherwise my house might be in ashes. ;-) Link to comment
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