Workhorse Ballasts

[JoJo]

Tigger,

my # 604 968-6903 Thanks!!!!

[Achilles]

Thank you for all the help!

Cheers!

[CHEAPREEF]

Just wondering, will the workhorse overdrive the same as a standard electronic ballast? Or will it put the rated power out? I've read on here somewhere that if you overdrive a NO bulb with 110watt ballast you will actually only get about 80 watts. Now the workhorse 7 is rated for 220 watts, if i overdrive 2 NO will i get 220 watts or 160 watts? Hope this makes sense.

Clinton

[reefburnaby]

Hi,

1. Does overdriving cut the bulb life down?
2. What is the worst case scenario from doing that.... a burnt out bulb or a burnt out house!?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1. Yes. But, most tubes are designed to work up to 15000-20000 hours. In reefing, we probably turn our lights on for 8 hours a day or ~3000 hours a year. Even if the tube life is degraded by 1/2 or 1/4, we are still fine.

2. Worst case senario...burn down a house due to electrical miswire. Well, everything has risks...especially with electricity around a big box of salt water. With careful planning and proper instalation, it should be as safe as an Icecap. If anything, it will be just the tubes failing like normal tubes (blacken ends).

- Victor

[StirCrazy]

CHEAPREEF, the only way to know for sure is to put a multi-meter on it and measure the curent you are using. I have had different results from 3 diferent modle ballasts but as of yet I have not obtained double the output from 2X overdriving. now having said that I have not tried a workhorse balast on my tests yet. (mabe I will pick one up this afternoon if they will give me agood price) I would make a guess on a electric balast with two sets of leads instead of he normal one set you would be pushing about 1.5X the normal power, mabe a workhorse would be a bit higher. In reference a icecap ballast over drives NO bulbs 1.5X there normal power.

Steve