MH to HPS conversion bulb

hotrodharley said:

It's matching the starter/igniter. Certainly it is not a bulb-for-bulb trade.

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250 watts and up it is just a bulb for bulb trade when it comes to magnetic hps ballasts. Unscrew your hps and screw your mh in.

Wow that actually works I happen to have a t5ho ballast I can't believe that I didn't think of that I may try that on my next grow!!!!

Alexander Supertramp said:

You are correct. A magnetic hps will fire a mh just fine.

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Thanks for the confirm and additional info! Yea, I've got a random Internet bulb in my magnetic greenhouse ballast so id say "myth confirmed"

a mag hps ballast will fire a mh bulb but if it dosent have it already dont you have to install a switch to turn the igniter off because the mh bulb has a built in igniter.

and if that works ^^^^ could you not install a switch and igniter on a mh ballast system to run an hps aswell?

viper2020cobra said:

a mag hps ballast will fire a mh bulb but if it dosent have it already dont you have to install a switch to turn the igniter off because the mh bulb has a built in igniter.

and if that works ^^^^ could you not install a switch and igniter on a mh ballast system to run an hps aswell?

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The igniter does not need to be physically bypassed when using a MH bulb. And yes if you have a magnetic MH ballast then installing a 10 dollar igniter will turn it into a HPS ballast. The signal the bulb calls for dictates if the igniter cycles or not. Its only used for the initial arc in the HPS bulb. Once the bulb is fired the HPS ballast operates no differently than a MH ballast. Talking magnetics of course........