400w metal halide seems dim but i dont know

i just got a low bay 400w mh light and it is my first one but it seems a little dim my cfl set-up seems brighter. im not sure. i put my hand under the bulb and it is like a blue-grey light. does anyone have a way of showing me how bright it SHOULD be. here is a picture of the light, i didnt take picture showing the filament so it is actually a little brighter than it looks but not much

400w mh should be pretty bright , it shouldnt compare to your cfls lol...when ihad my 175w mh it was pretty darn bright. so something doesnt sound right

u can get a light meter

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_KEISRuq-Pp8/Rm2Dge8ec3I/AAAAAAAAADI/8TJz5NSzl0c/IMG_2160.JPG

those are 400w mh's

i have tw o bulbs for it and i tried them both but they were both used but the same brigtness. I switched the ballast over to 120v from 277v and put a standard plug on it but that shouldnt affect the brightness though right?

Heres some pics of my 400watt MH in my grow room. Although I should probably change my bulb after this harvest lol. But ya should be damn bright. I go blind for about a minute after spending a few minutes in my room and leave it. Time to bust out sunglasses

They dont get bright all at once. Make sure the unit has cooled down for 10 minutes then plug it in and walk away.

By 30 minutes it should be pretty bright.

Turning it off and on quickly can cause it not to operate properly.

it was on for a long time without being messed with but i have it turned off now and in 10 minutes i will turn it back on and wait. thanks for the input

onetwothreebah said:

it was on for a long time without being messed with but i have it turned off now and in 10 minutes i will turn it back on and wait. thanks for the input

Click to expand...

If that does not do it and both bulbs act the same way then I would guess it might be the ballast.

i have two of the lights so i will convert the other one to 120 as well and give it a try

check your line voltage, may be enought to run cfls & not the ballast

just so you know, it should get brighter with time, but metal halides have around a 100 hour burn in process... they need to burn for this time as a break in period before they reach their true desgiend color and wavelength... and like it was mentioned previously check everything out to make sure everythings the way it should be...

yea but regardless, his mh doesnt seem bright enough like it should be. My 175w was way brighter than that when i first turned it on. lol

PROBLEM SOLVED!! it was the ballast. something(yet to be determined) is bad in it i rewired my other 400w for 120 and fired it up and BOOM power of the sun baby! huge props to everyone who helped me out on this one!