Exploring CMH alternatives to the traditional

[leafminer]

I have been doing a lot more investigating and discovered several new interesting areas.

OK for starters, here is the Philips Ceramic Metal Halide CDM 35/Par30L/M/FL/3K lamp, being adopted widely now by stores for displays - especially department stores, fashion shops, galleries . . . all the vendors and utilities that need daylight rendering.


The interesting thing is that they have these very compact 100W reflector lamps that are similar in size to the old incandescent ones, except these are using the new CMH tech.

Of course they still need a BALLAST - it is a straight ANSI ballast (mag) and given that stores are buying tons of these things they should be cheap.

So it occured to me that I could build a lamp board with these - is it possible to get swivel lamp sockets I wonder - using as many 100W units as desired, say 4 or 6.

Pricewise they are not expensive ... around $25 per unit in 6-off I saw in one EBay offer. So say $150 for 600W of CMH, plus 6 ballasts at about $25 I guess, total $300 for a versatile 600W that puts out the same lumens as a 750W MH lamp and with sunlight colour bandwidth? And as efficient as HPS?

Does that sound like an option?

 

[loolagigi]

i dunno, but seems intresting. wish i could say more, i kiss.

 

[hugs4nuggs420]

Sound like a good DIY project. Logic seems sound and if the bulbs put out the correct color spectrum and lumen output you should be good.

I've seen these bulbs before and they seemed interesting. If you could post some updates later on if you do use them on how well they worked, it would be appreciated.

 

[ishnish]

:watchplant:

 

[leafminer]

Thinking further along these lines it seems too expensive.
Since a standard ANSI mag ballast can fire a 400-watter, I think I'd be interested more in getting say an HTG 400W setup "but without the bulb please" and plugging a 400W CMH into it.
However before I took the chance I would have to check with HTG the ANSI code on their ballast to make certain it's compatible.
I'm planning to build a veg room in the garden on top of my 8 cu.m water cistern. For sure I will use CMH lamps in it. I want tighter internodes than HPS gives in veg.