Avenger007
Well-known member
Looking for a ballast to add to my own lighting rig that can dim some Fluorescent lights. I saw that cool lights has some units but the dimmer is built into the unit rather than remote control on a ballast.
Who sells dimming ballasts for Fluorescent lights?
- Thread starter Avenger007
- Start date
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
We're waiting on China right now. Osram ballasts are in Kino Divas... but you'll pay a lot for those... plus you still have to work out the dimming interface. China is all over it right now... it won't be long before we have them available, but there's no guessing exactly when.
3 years ago the cheapest dimming ballast I could find (with decent specs) came from IceCap... and it ended up costing me about $150 per ballast.
Now you can buy daylight fluorescents with dimming capability from fullspectrumsolutions.com or bluemaxlighting.com but these lights are in normal household form factors... but the point is that true dimming flo ballasts at a very low price aren't far off. If bluemax can sell a complete, dimming flo for around $100 then what do you think that Chinese ballast is costing them? Probably about $5-10 tops.
3 years ago the cheapest dimming ballast I could find (with decent specs) came from IceCap... and it ended up costing me about $150 per ballast.
Now you can buy daylight fluorescents with dimming capability from fullspectrumsolutions.com or bluemaxlighting.com but these lights are in normal household form factors... but the point is that true dimming flo ballasts at a very low price aren't far off. If bluemax can sell a complete, dimming flo for around $100 then what do you think that Chinese ballast is costing them? Probably about $5-10 tops.
Avenger007
Well-known member
I wonder if their cheaper units can be disassembled and rewired into a custom housing. If thats the case, that would suggest a dimming ballast cost of under $100.
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Hehe, haven't seen you around lately. Really--that's true on daylight dimmable CFLs? That's quite a development. Dimmable CFL with a good CRI and in daylight. Last ones I got were off Ebay, color temp was 2700K and the CRI was very low--maybe 65 to 75. Terrible quality. I think we can have a dimmable ballast for sale on the website in the $70 range for the DIY crowd to go along with the non-dimmable sylvania ones we sell.
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
The torchiers are the fixtures that I bought and canniballized... it cost $99 for a 5500k 91cri fixture with 20-100% dimming. I've got one gutted and built into one of those thin stainless steel bowls... like a commercial mixing bowl... illuminating my greenscreen right now.
There aren't any GOOD dimmable SPIRAL bulbs as of yet... not the kind that screw into a normal edison (household) socket... because those bulbs are self-ballasted and they haven't figured out how to get all of that into the little white housing... but most other flo bulb types are being integrated into high cri dimming fixtures.
That's one of the things that put me off on building lights... but honestly I figured that video capable fixtures with those same qualities... at those same prices... were going to be out any day now... but that hasn't happened. I think the market is still too small of a niche.
It's just like blimps/zeppelins for mics... if any TOY manufacturer decided to mold some blimps... they could sell them for about $5... and yet we have to pay $200+ because we're screwed and nobody else makes 'em.
Avenger007
Well-known member
I'd be very interested. I like to make fixtures with removable bulbs (similar to Kino 400 setups) and the dimming capability would come in handy. I like how my kino can adjust to two different intensities (2ft and 4ft on the ballast) but I dont like how they cost me $800+. Ive seen your flo setups and they are just as nicely constructed save for a few features like a remote ballast ect.
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Fixtures with femote ballast will be for another day. There's actually only a small segment that needs a removable ballast and all the extra costs that will entail. I always like to start with the largest market segment I can tackle first, then come back to the more unusual or higher priced setups. A remote ballast will have to have its own housing, special connectors, long cable, special removable sockets for the bulbs, etc. All of that adds cost that many may not be willing to pay. Most of the market is just looking for a all-in-one fixture that's got everything on it. They won't be taping bulbs to the ceiling very often. Anyway, we should carry a limited supply of dimming ballasts and see how they do. If they're popular we'll carry a bigger stock. Should also have a few lollipops in the DIY/parts section as well. We're reengineering the lollipop and thats one of our delays. The typical model just doesn't stick in place like I like without too much elbow grease. We'll have a neat variation which improves on the current design.
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Yeah, I think it'll be a while before they can do line voltage dimming well in a package so small. On the other hand, the Advance Mark 10 dimming ballasts are really the best I think. They don't need that pesky 10v control voltage nor do they need to be adapted to DMX for a studio dimming solution. Got an old style line voltage dimming console? Want to dim flo's in your studio from the console? Use the Advance Mark 10 line. Or, you have a more modern DMX style control console? No need to buy the more expensive flo with DMX circuitry and the Advance Mark 7 ballasts (10v). Use the Mark 10 and add line voltage dimmer packs to your DMX setup on the grid, plug the flo's into them and you're set. Much more simple than most of the fixtures people are coming out with for central dimming control. That's one of my projects I want to complete next year is an inexpensive line voltage dimming flo using an Advance Mark 10 type of ballast.
MattinSTL
Sound Modulator
You may want to look into the IceCap technology... or at least the way they do dimming. I had them modding the $70 ballast (47kHz frequency or so) so that it could be dimmed by simply inserting the right pot. We then used addressable push pots with numbers for 1000, 100, 10, and 1s (percentages)... that way you can push in a dimming percentage quickly, and then leave the lights set at whatever you had 'em at last, rather then having to use a monitor and judge.
I thought it was a pretty good idea at the time, but at that point I couldn't get the cost down enough to pass this on to DVXusers... although one of our members has a couple of these ballasts in this configuration (that I sold him)... but I can't remember who it was... hmm.
Anyway... assignable push pots. Something to think about. They don't cost much and it guarantees easily repeatable lighting setups.
I thought it was a pretty good idea at the time, but at that point I couldn't get the cost down enough to pass this on to DVXusers... although one of our members has a couple of these ballasts in this configuration (that I sold him)... but I can't remember who it was... hmm.
Anyway... assignable push pots. Something to think about. They don't cost much and it guarantees easily repeatable lighting setups.
Cool Lights
DVXuser Sponsor
Great idea. I have to admit, I didn't even know about assignable push pots. We use 10K regular pots on our dimming models now. So you're talking about a pot that you can basically dial in the percentage of resistance up to its capacity in steps of 10% is what I'm hearing...
I knew about IceCaps dimming model but was never able to get them to explain to me how the inputs work. They had some kind of timed dimming capability on that and acted like they weren't too kean to share how it all worked. They should have been ecstatic that someone else wanted to come up with some different kind of dimming controller for the ballast.
I knew about IceCaps dimming model but was never able to get them to explain to me how the inputs work. They had some kind of timed dimming capability on that and acted like they weren't too kean to share how it all worked. They should have been ecstatic that someone else wanted to come up with some different kind of dimming controller for the ballast.