Mh Lighting, How Much?

[goonerman1]

Barney....did you get my email??

 

[SkiFletch]

Both might be putting out 150W of light but the method by which they do it is very different.

Not going into too much detail but in short a MH is not as energy efficient. For example a MH might need to use 300w of power to create 150W of light output while a T5 would only use 200w of power to give 150w (numbers made up so probably not that extreme).

Barney's concepts are true here for sure, even if they're not the exact numbers. One thing I'd like to add... Older style "Magnetic" ballasts for halide lamps have poor efficiency as Barney noted. Newer style Electronic ballasts for halides are significantly more efficient, almost as efficient as the T5 ballasts. It seems over in the UK that Electronic ballasts for halide lamps are not that popular and are really expensive. Opposite is true here in the States, they're readily available and inexpensive.

 

[ben1987]

my 250W halide with electronic ballast draws 285W iirc. tested it ages ago on one of those plug things

 

[SkiFletch]

Sounds about right ben. My 175 watters draw ~192 each