I'm planning on connecting them to an extention cord and the puting the ext. cord on a heavy duty timer, will that work for all three units of 3 x 4lamps ea.The t5's are great. The ballast is built in so no need for a seperate one. This makes them very quiet. Also MUCH less heat to deal with. They also have switches on the side so you can turn some or all of the bulbs on.
Thanx a lot man...seriously...but I'm still having serious problems trying to figure out how many bulbs i should use for my 6x6 grow room and how i'm going to set it up....My head's hurting from all the reasearch....We are talking 5000 lumens. With the t5's no extra ballast. Which means no noise. hardy any heat, you have the ability to adjust the light output. I have used both. I made the switch to the t5's about 6 months ago and have been very pleased with the results. Yes you can use the heavy duty extension cord and timer. Make sure that you are not overloading system.