Flo Ballasts in Overdrive

M

mdlis

Member
http://sammyxp.tripod.com/html/id16.html

I'm new to the topic, but it seems you can "overdrive" your electronic ballasts. In fact, a lot of "plant growers" have done it for a long time in order to produce more light for their plants.
So far I'm understanding that if I have an electronic ballast made for TWO 4' T8 bulbs, instead of using two bulbs I can just wire both sets of wires for ONE bulb and get DOUBLE the light out of only one bulb. What use is this? I guess you can take your diy kinos and just add another ballast (for a 2 bulb unit, that would be one ballast for each light, making two ballasts) and get probably twice the light output!

Beyond this, you can take that same 4' T8 ballast I mentioned above, and instead wire it to a single 2' bulb and make that sucker shine like there's no tomorrow.

I'm still researching this, and it seems you can achieve brighter lights by playing around with wiring them in series or parrallel.

Matt in St. Louis, any comments?
 
Yeah I experimented with over-driving flos for months. I had T12 tubes running like a striped-ass ape. I wouldn't be afraid to try anything myself... and you can do that at your own risk... but there's no way I was going to sell anything like that... just from a liability standpoint.

When you're overdriving those tubes (which are normally COOL to the touch) they are amazingly HOT... you can't touch any part of them... not even for a second. I wondered how long I could do that w/o burning them out.

Finally I dumped that idea... because I think you can accomplish a lot with improved reflector design... without the increased risk of overdriving tubes... but as I said, I think it would be cool if YOU did it... and I don't care if everybody did it... but there's no way I'd incorporate an overdrive situation into something I was sending out.

If you're serious about it then let me know... You need to set up a fuse/breaker in your fixture... change out the switch with a higher rated switch... and replace the lamp holders (sockets). I can hook you up with all of these parts.

Oh yeah... I should also add that the ballast I was using to do this cost me $140 and was intended for this purpose.
 
Yeah, I agree Matt:
although the idea is neat, I think it takes away TWO of the main reasons why fluorescent lighting is so good, namely:

- the cool running of the light (in the article they mention a FAN, well, we can't have a fan for video work of course)
- the longevity of the bulb

It would be a shame to see these benefits gone.
 
I wasn't kidding when I said the ONLY thing I'm worried about as it pertains to everyone else is SAFETY. I don't even care about that as it pertains to ME... only as it pertains to YOU.

There's a reason people say, "at your own risk"... and this is one of those times.

Again... I'll be happy to send you some parts that will lower that risk and facilitate this successfully... but they are parts and you are on your own with the risk part of the equation. Back when I was doing that (nearly two years ago) I really wanted to talk about it and post some footage... because initially I thought that was the answer... but in a logical action/reaction sense I just had a bad feeling about it.

The reason I'm offering the parts is because I bailed on the idea and I have stuff in boxes collecting dust... plus it was fun for a while... you'll be surprised when you see that it does actually work.
 
I'm all over the gardenweb.com forum at this moment, and from what I can tell it doesn't seem like overdriving will cause anything to blow up.

Vidled,
1. The lights will run warmer, but don't have to be hot to the touch. I don't think you'll neccessarily need a fan depending on how much you overdrive them.
2. It seems if you run a single 4' T8 bulb on a ballast made for a TWO of those same 4' T8 bulbs, since you're running the single one at TWICE the power, the life of the bulb will shorten by half. So a 20,000 hours bulb will now be 10,000 hours (that's still 416 days straight).

Matt, I appreciate the help, lemme research it a lil more and if I feel comfortable with it then I'll let ya know. Also, nobody in those garden forums seem to mention fuses, or even expensive ballasts and parts. Actually, they've done it on a cheap electronic ballast from a $7 Home Depot Flo (same that I have) and nobody mentions anything blowing up. Of course, I'm assuming that they know what they're doing, but I do because these garden guys probably have their Flos on almost all the time, every day, all year long.
 
The lights don't have to be hot to the touch?

Try it and get back with me.

Regarding the approach of no-fuse, no heat considerations, and a $7 ballast to make it all happen? I rest my case on my comment; "at your own risk".

In my experience... it's not a simple double power = double output = double heat issue. If you super-charge a car engine that wasn't designed for it you don't get double the power and half the service life of that engine... you burn it up in one fun and wacky summer. When you get those tubes running double the output... they'll be 10X hotter.

I'm not trying to discourage you... like I said I'll SUPPLY the parts to do it right... but it never ceases to amaze me how many people line up for the free lunch.
 
Thanks mdlis, for the added info.

I mentioned the heat only because we are working on a light where we absolutely need the light to run as cool as possible.
And I am not sure if that equation regarding bulb life is backed up by real life facts: i.e. double current = half life. It could be exponential.

But I like the idea as far as pushing the existing to the MAX, it just won't work for our application.
 
The info I'm providing is basically just compressed from what I'm getting from these garden/aquarium forums. Honestly, I find it hard to believe myself, but in terms of the lights being/not being hot and life, that's just collected information from different threads...so I'm not gonna swear on it.
Also, one interesting fact I learned too is that many flos are setup to run in UNDERDRIVE, so overdriving them will actually just make them run at their full potentially and probably a lil more.
 
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