Shopping for new bulbs...for my lumatex...advice?

hey nerds, i need advice on new bulbs, suited for my digi ballasts, i want to add some blue to my spectrum, any thoughts?

for the money i don't think you can go wrong with digilux bulbs. they offer 25% more energy in the blue, green , and violet spectrums for their HPS bulb. Made for digital ballasts and hot start approved (not that I would want to test that claim anyways). Love the eye hortilux too, but for the money i would go digilux. They claim to have 10,000 more lumens than the hortilux as well.

Nugs, I'm not sure how soon you need them, but before you buy it, check out Plantlightinghydroponics.com(they carry lumatek digital bulbs),or businesslights.com to compare prices. HTGsupply has a " digital " bulb I use, as well. ATB!

I just bought a lumatek ballast and went ahead and got the lumatek 'digital' bulb with it... figured it should work well with their ballast at the least... using it on their super lumens setting so hopefully getting 660-690w worth of output but no meter to know. Not sure how much extra blue is in it though -- it's yellow like the sun.

ushio......

i run ushio in my digi ballasts, im very pleased with them. i do not have any qualifications to discuss their specific output spectrum, but mine have been very durable and reliable. i have actually achieved my highest yield with the ushio bulbs, but i plan to try hortilux next.

kane

i use ushio lamps in all my digital ballasts

alighty nugs. i have been playing with bulbs the last few grows on my lumateks and this is what i have come to love. I use 1000 watt ushio blue bulbs the first two weeks during the stretch, they really make for that perfect strech, tighter spaced internodes and the same amount of growth in height....more nodes+same hieght=higher yield . for a metal halide the put out a shit ton of lumens and have a nice spectrum coverage that suits our plants, after the stretch is over i introduce my eye hortiluxs, although they dont have the intensity of digiluxes(brightest bulb i have ran) they have a perfect spectrum that transitions nicely from the metal halides. my main foucus has been to dial my stretch and playing around with my bulbs allowed me to achieve that.

Sunday morning ramblings courtesy of the sunday morning joint of jack..... never forget your heros!

ive seen lots of returns of hortilux lamps that were paired with lumatek ballasts. i have access to all lamps and tried almost all. ill say this: the germans really know how to make stuff.

.... not goin to lie just got into ushio, and have had my best results since trying them out. im going to spend some time reasearching their hps and see where i stand. this thread needed to be started.....a weed nerd would start it haha

i have been pairing phantom ballasts and ushios for the last 2 years. best results to date. should be noted that i typically dont air cool my hoods. that piece of glass between the lamp and the canopy really limits lumens. especially with metal halide.

kushking42 said:

i have been pairing phantom ballasts and ushios for the last 2 years. best results to date. should be noted that i typically dont air cool my hoods. that piece of glass between the lamp and the canopy really limits lumens. especially with metal halide.

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i agree, i much prefer open air reflectors. the hps lights in my budroom are air cooled, but my metal halide veg area is open air. i think my open air metal halide can effectively cover a slightly larger footprint than my air cooled hps with the same wattage.

kane

i would like to add that my local hydro shop recently stopped carrying digilux bulbs due to poor service from the manufacturer (lots of difficulty with warranty claims and slow to fill orders)

kane

^^ya they are really notorious bad lamps

digilux or ushio and second advice is ebay

I've been using Ushio for a while, love them.

I had a digilux blow out after 3 mo.

kushking42 said:

ive seen lots of returns of hortilux lamps that were paired with lumatek ballasts. i have access to all lamps and tried almost all. ill say this: the germans really know how to make stuff.

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returns?....meaning?

alright...going to check out ushio....

you guys use the "opti red" or the "enhanced performance"?

nugbuckets said:

returns?....meaning?

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I can tell you I've had repeated problems with Hortilux MH bulbs on Lumatek ballasts. For some reason the bulbs don't ignite consistently, it's a real pain in the ass. The Hortilux HPS bulbs -- I never had a problem with them on Lumatek ballasts.

I don't think either product is inferior, I think it's a compatibility issue.