Overclocking Lamps And Ballast, The first trip in overdriving MH400,HQI400,MH1000, HQI 250 Options

[wooz]

A note of caution:

Capacitors, especially high voltage ones, can be lethal. They hold a charge for an indefinite amount of time after the power is removed. Be sure the caps have bleeder resistors across the posts to help drain the charge when the power is off.

[arizonavideo]

There are a lot of different types of caps if you read the side of you cap from your ballast it will say 400vac EDIT It must say if it has a resistor vaule if it does then it will discharge the cap when not in use so it can’t shock you with 330 volts if you touch it. You can use non protected caps but they will stay charged when not in use. But like I said before they will discharge if hooked to the other cap. The small one's [2uf] won't kill you just teach you.

I had to take a closer look at the melted lamp so I cracked the shell. The inside arc tube broke at the same time. It made a nice loud bang. I don't know if the outside or inside made the bang.

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Now I can measure the arc tube and test the internal parts.

It is really 38mm and thinner but it still looks just like the 1000 watt tube just shorter

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There was no damage to the electrodes

I might put all the reading of power, caps, and temps on one post. It will make it easer to see the trends.

I ran the 400 watt lamp all day first stock then with a 28uf cap and then with a 30uf cap I wanted to get a better baseline reading of the ballast temp before over clocking it. I have been taking the readings at two points on the iron core and the copper windings of the sender coils.

After 3 hours the stock 400 watt ballast was at 205deg secondary and 179.
I then added a cap to make the value 28uf or 496 watts after an hour or so the temp was

Core 195deg secondary 240deg

Then I went to 30uf or 545 watts after an hour or so I got

Core= 202deg secondary 242deg

That is too hot to touch. Well I have 25 fans maybe I should add one? So I added a low CFM 120mm fan. No box just let it blow on it. I measures points that the air was not directly blowing on in fact where the air was blowing on the secondary the were like 90deg or so. This at 545 watts after a hour or so.

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Core=136deg secondary = 170deg

Well that is a lot lower than I expected. I do have a nice box that the ballast came in maybe I should cut a hole in it for a fan.

The cooling worked so well that I may change my plans some.

This post has been edited by arizonavideo: May 25 2006, 01:25 AM

[scubasteve2365]

Not tryin to steal your glory any, just though a slight cleaner diagram for those who arent electronically/schematically inclined.

Caps in parallel to each other, and those in series with lamp.

I will be doing this when I return from Europe. Ive been wanting to do this test for awhile and now that AV has done them for me, I get to plug and play ...... Thanks

Attached File(s)

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[DAZZZLA]

I really hope that you broke open that lamp outside where you were not exposed to the poisonous gasses contain in the arc vessel. And you used gloves when handling the pieces.

DJ

[scubasteve2365]

I do have one thing to discuss, those that may know more about active cooling.

One could go the path of thermal paste and a heatsink, but I dont think that is required, as these ballast can take a chunk of heat before the give up.

I have my ballast in an enclosure I built already as seen in the following images:





As you can see, I already thought about the holes when I made the box. I can just mount a fan on the outside, my only thought is would it be better to blow onto the ballast, or suck air out of the enclosure.

[arizonavideo]

Not tryin to steal your glory any, just though a slight cleaner diagram for those who arent electronically/schematically inclined.

Caps in parallel to each other, and those in series with lamp.

I will be doing this when I return from Europe. Ive been wanting to do this test for awhile and now that AV has done them for me, I get to plug and play ...... Thanks

I'm crushed Really

Well the heat from the ballast won't be a problem so what wattage do we run the lamp at?

This a small list of lamps and wattage per mm of arc tube length and life. just to see a trend.

Arc tube.. Power...... Life...... Total power.

43mm.... 10.45 ... 20,000... 450 watt
38mm.... 10.5... 20,000... 400 watt
80mm..... 12.5... 20,000... 1000 watt
25mm .... 12.4... 20,000... 310 watt
27mm..... 14.8... 10,000... 400 watt
51mm.... 14.7... 10,000... 750 watt
85mm.... 17.7... 3000... 1500 watt


It looks like 14.7 or so is commom for the more high performance lamps so 38mm x 14.7= 558 watts.
looking at the list there is one lamp that lookes like it has a lower power to watts raito.The venture 450watt PS lamp with a 43mm tube 43 x 14.7=632 watts. A 43mm arc image will still fit in a stock triplet.


550 watts or 600 sounds good.

I did an outside test with the 400 watt lamp at 550 watts.

[Edit by placing the lamp on a tripod at 1m in the air and having the lux meter on the ground there is almost no reflected light from walls or roof so the reading should be close to correct]

The LUX meter showed 45,100 LUX[edit lumens] at 1m. This seams a little low for the wattage but shouldn't be too far off.

[Edit Most of the universal lamp from venture make 36,000 when new. I haven't found the GE numbers yet ]

I orderd a spare 400 watt lamp today from 1000 bulbs.com It has a 4200k color temp and the arc tube is unkown. $17.00
It may well be that most lamps male less light in the horizontal position. This might explain the low lux readings.

I have decided to do some long term testing at 550 watts. How long I go I don't know right now.
If everything goes well I might go to 600 watts.

EDIT

I wanted to make a list of the power output and the cap and temps. the real thing to look at is the current.

Stock 400 watt ballast and GE 400 watt lamp with a 38mm arc tube.

Power watts...Lamp voltage.........Current amps...............Lamp shell temp....Balast temp......... Cap

392............135........................2.91..............................343...........
......... 214..................... 24uf..................................................

435..........139......................... 3.13..............................384......................225....................26uf....
...........................................

489......... 137........................ 3.57....................................................................................28
uf...............................................

562......... 142.........................3.96..............................401....................170[ with 120mm fan].30uf...........................................

604..........146.........................4.14..............................406............
.........240..........................32uf..........................................

I did the input current for three power levels

392 watts was 3.56 amps at 114vac .. Input watts =405
562 watts was 5.1 amps at 113vac . . Input watts = 576
604 watts was 5.68 amps at 114vac . Input watts = 648

The input waveform is perfect even with a 604 watt load.

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At 604 watts only wasting 44 watts as heat is a lot better than I thought. It should be easy to cool the ballast with any fan.

This post has been edited by arizonavideo: Mar 28 2006, 06:32 AM

[ChuckL]

AZ
Would the same principals apply to a 400 hps ballast? I am almost thru with build 2 and would like to overclock my S400DD lamp. I am doing a verticle build which means I will lose some lumens with the bulb being horizonal and the FS mirror. This build also uses a precondenser.Also have a lux meter on the way so it will be interesting to see the increase in total output in a hps ballast.

My cap says MMP Capacitor 300vac 55uf +-3%.

This post has been edited by ChuckL: Mar 27 2006, 04:05 AM

[arizonavideo]

AZ
Would the same principals apply to a 400 hps ballast? I am almost thru with build 2 and would like to overclock my S400DD lamp. I am doing a verticle build which means I will lose some lumens with the bulb being horizonal and the FS mirror. Also have a lux meter on the way so it will be interesting to see the increase in total output in a hps ballast.

My cap says MMP Capacitor 300v 55uf +-3%.

The sd400 has a smaller arc at 27mm [I think] so it already runes with a higher power density.

The hps ballast make more current so the L/C ratio is larger they run a 240vac cap without testing I would not go over 4uf this should give you 50 more watts. Any more and I would count on a vary short lamp life.

It would help to know if the arc is running across the top of the arc tube. If it is this may shorter lamp life even more. You will need some welding glasses to really look at the arc even then your face will still see the up. Keep the exposure time down to less than 30 seconds if you do this.

A before and after lux reading will give a fair idea of the power increase too.

The 400 watt lamp runes at 14.8 watts per/mm at 450 watts that becomes 16.67 watts. The highest power normal lamp is the sports lamp at 17.7 watts per/mm of lamp arc[3000 hour life]. You might only get 4000-5000 hour lamp life at 450 watts.

You could be the first to find out Hey what was that sound?

So if you add a 4uf 240vac cap it should be OK. [any ac voltage larger than 240vac is ok but the cap will get larger with voltage rating pm me if you find one] I would use a switch and only hit it with the extra power after warm up and when the movie starts.

The lamp will cool much better outside than in a box with poor air flow. I would not over cool the lamp it may make them unstable but the hot air does need to be removed from the box. You dont want the reflector to cover the whole lamp everyone with the large bowl with the notch cut out should just cut the whole bowl at the notch. The rest of the reflector is not used any how but the light and heat does heat up the lamp. [yes the light system does wast all that light.]


I have started the long term testing of the GE lamp at 550 watts. I expect this to be about much fun as watching paint dry.


It is outside on a steel covered table with the 120mm fan blowing on the ballast. I am using the cooper reflector that acts like a spherical reflector so this should heat up the lamp some. The air does blow towards the lamp reflector but I did no direct cooling of the lamp. I may chane this to let it get hotter.

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I don’t know how long I will let it run. After some 15 hour days I may let it go for some 24 hour runs. After a few hundred hours I may go to 600 watts. I do have another lamp coming and I will want to try it too. I will take some temp readings along the way.

This post has been edited by arizonavideo: Jul 29 2006, 08:03 AM

[scubasteve2365]

hey AV,

will you tell me the input current, and line voltage (~120V) going into the ballast.

I wanna see how much power the ballast is drawing, versus how much power the lamp is recieving.

[SIMUL8R]

I really hope that you broke open that lamp outside where you were not exposed to the poisonous gasses contain in the arc vessel. And you used gloves when handling the pieces.

DJ

poisonous gas??!!!

[ChuckL]

I will give the 4uf cap a go round to see what kind of increase I get. The bulb is rated for a 20000 hour life in it's stock form,perhaps I may get a little more than 5000 but it will probally get that as a useable for our purposes, The reflector thing for me is not a issue as I am using the Pro reflector. I will see if I can find a cap over the next few days and I should get my lux meter by wed this week. I will take before and after measurments. I just hope the added heat doesn't crack my condenser .
How about this cap?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...mMakeTrack=true

Thanks AZ for the input

This post has been edited by ChuckL: Mar 27 2006, 05:57 AM

[arizonavideo]

hey AV,

will you tell me the input current, and line voltage (~120V) going into the ballast.

I wanna see how much power the ballast is drawing, versus how much power the lamp is recieving.

I knew that was coming.

I can do it. I will need to do both settings [24uf 30uf] to really determine the true losses by changing the caps.
I did try adding a small 4uf and then a large 32uf cap in parallel to the input line as a power factor correction for an inductive load. I saw no difference in power output at all. It could have made a difference in the heat but I didn’t do a long term test.

[arizonavideo]

To scuba Added amp readings to post # 709

[scubasteve2365]

To scuba Added amp readings to post # 709

Hey ROX you reading this ....

Look at the numbers ....

Nearly every spec sheet on an M59 ballast has the input wattage to be 450W or about.

Oddly AV measured 405W. This is why SPEC SHEETS ARE GARBAGE, they arent REAL world.

Sorry, just had to throw that out there.

Very interesting to see that under stock conditions only little power is wasted. My initial thought was that we were wasting 50W under stock conditions, and I was afraid with the added caps that that could have been as high as 100W or ever more.

But as you proved, spec sheets arent accurate, and that under extreme load only 44W wasted.

Good job, and thanks for getting those numbers.

I leave the country tommorrow, but when I return in a couple weeks Im gonna drop some more caps in, and just go with the flow with it in my PJ. If it burst I hope the lexan will protect my LCD.

In the meanwhile, if at all possible, keep conducting your test.

[arizonavideo]

My input voltage is kinda low at 114vac If you go to 117 The output would be closer to speck. Power may change as lamps age too. The GE also does not delever 400 watts to the lamp. Basicly the GE ballast stinks. It was free though.

I am not having any fun runing the lamp at 550 watts I may just go to 604 watts I ran it there doday for hours and all seems fine.

I have a new IKEA Blanda Blank reflector that I want to try out I cut it down today. I think 600 watts and the blanda might be good.

I want to find a way to coat the blanda to maKe it more reflective? Any help?

[pagercam]

Look at the numbers ....

Nearly every spec sheet on an M59 ballast has the input wattage to be 450W or about.

The 450W is to account for the inefficencies of the ballast, they get hot because they burn 50W themsleves
So bulb uses 400W Ballast uses 50W or atleast thats what is claimed. Eballasts claim 430W or so as they are actively controlled and thus more efficent.

[scubasteve2365]

The 450W is to account for the inefficencies of the ballast, they get hot because they burn 50W themsleves
So bulb uses 400W Ballast uses 50W or atleast thats what is claimed. Eballasts claim 430W or so as they are actively controlled and thus more efficent.

I know that its counting for the ballast effeciency. Thats why I asked AV to measure it.

Yes, his lamp is recieving 8 less watts than rating, but 45 less watts on the input. The error percentage from spec does not correlate.

Yes, if you up the line voltage you can get closer to spec, but at that point youd also be over the 400W to the lamp as well. The specs have it as 450W in, 400W out. Even at a perfect 120V I dont think youd have 50W of lost power on that ballast.

hell, when its overclocked to 600W, you still dont have 50W of lost power met, only 44W at that point.

I wanted to know the input power, and was actually surprised by it. I also used it as a point for me, in Rox's and I never ending debate between spec sheets and real world.

[arizonavideo]

I was looking at some different lamps and two things start to stand out. First a T15 style lamp will let you use the pro reflector so you will get a good amount of lux gain of about 15% by using a smaller lamp shell. Venture has a T15 lamp with a 35mm arc so it should be good for 550 watts.

http://www.venturelighting.com/LampsDataSh...alide/55422.pdf

And one from eye, they don't list arc tube length so we would have to find out.

http://www.eyelighting.com/multimetal_tubular.html

The other thing is how much brighter most of the BU and vertical lamps are, This eye lamp makes 42,000 lumens and has a 42mm lamp arc.

http://www.eyelighting.com/tb/MH/multimeta...52-78-52582.pdf

If we bring up the power level to the same as the SD400 or 14.7 watts per /mm then that would be 617 watts for the eye lamp lumans would go from 42,000 to 64,785 lumens. very good numbers

Then if you don't mind a big lamp. This BU lamp makes 44,000 lumens and has a 30,000 hour life. The larger lamp will cool better so 600 watts or 650 or 700 watts should be good for this lamp too.

http://www.eyelighting.com/tb/MH/ignitek/E...52-78-52529.pdf

So there is room for more LUX with some other lamps. I’m not going to try all of these but the pro reflector and the 35mm arc tube look very good and I could sell it on LL after I’m done.

This post has been edited by arizonavideo: Mar 28 2006, 07:50 PM

[ChuckL]

My input voltage is kinda low at 114vac If you go to 117 The output would be closer to speck. Power may change as lamps age too. The GE also does not delever 400 watts to the lamp. Basicly the GE ballast stinks. It was free though.

I am not having any fun runing the lamp at 550 watts I may just go to 604 watts I ran it there doday for hours and all seems fine.

I have a new IKEA Blanda Blank reflector that I want to try out I cut it down today. I think 600 watts and the blanda might be good.

I want to find a way to coat the blanda to maKe it more reflective? Any help?

Depends in how much you wanna spend? I am not sure what it would cost but you could have it chromed at a place that refinishes bumpers. Other than polishing it that is the only thing I know to do.

This guy did it at home. Here is a link for info
http://freepages.pavilion.net/nickfull/chrome.htm

This post has been edited by ChuckL: Mar 28 2006, 07:54 PM

[Mikau]

So your saying thats a safe limit on the power supply? A 50% increase sounds good, not too high. But are 600 watt ballasts obtainable?

[SonicWonder2000]

So your saying thats a safe limit on the power supply? A 50% increase sounds good, not too high. But are 600 watt ballasts obtainable?

Mik,

Get yourself a book on 1st order LCR circuits. The power dissipated is a function of the capacitor © value used with a given ballast (L) fed into a metal hallide bulb ®. If the power dissipated is too much, the ballast transformer will melt.

As was said in the a/g thread, it bears repeating here. AV is one mad scientist who obviously knows what he is doing. I would consider ALL these procedures highly risky at the current time; the last thing we need is an exploded bulb within eye-shot of someone. I'm gonna wait a while till they are done with stability tests ...

AV: I am very interested in "cracking the outer bulb" to gain more arc encapsulation. It seems that when you tried this, the inner arc tube also broke; was this due to it being weakened/melted or do you expect it will be impossible to break the outer shell without breaking the arc tube?

[mikyd1954]

Not tryin to steal your glory any, just though a slight cleaner diagram for those who arent electronically/schematically inclined.

Caps in parallel to each other, and those in series with lamp.

I will be doing this when I return from Europe. Ive been wanting to do this test for awhile and now that AV has done them for me, I get to plug and play ...... Thanks

so how would you wire a switch into this to have a "high-low" ? a DPDT switch(I'm not good at switches ;-)? voltage/watts requirements?

[ChuckL]

AZ
Quick note for you
Lumen ck of my S400DD, 200mm from condenser
Horizonal 33900
Vertical 34800 Average of 5 readings rounded.
Loss of 900 lumen from the different positions. Loss is not that great. May have to do with the small arc of this bulb so your theory on arc length and position is probally correct. Will recieve my 4uf 370vac cap tomorrow and will do some testing for the 50W overclock on the HPS ballast and small arc lamp.

[arizonavideo]

AZ
Quick note for you
Lumen ck of my S400DD, 200mm from condenser
Horizonal 33900
Vertical 34800 Average of 5 readings rounded.
Loss of 900 lumen from the different positions. Loss is not that great. May have to do with the small arc of this bulb so your theory on arc length and position is probally correct. Will recieve my 4uf 370vac cap tomorrow and will do some testing for the 50W overclock on the HPS ballast and small arc lamp.

Five readings means you must have a slight tan going on buy now

900 lumens is a fair amount. We can guess that there will be some price to pay for going horizonal. I have not seen any lumens readings for the short arc lamps that gave different lumens for positions so maybe the longer the arc the more the effect?

Did you use flashing in you new light box? you know old smokie

This post has been edited by arizonavideo: Mar 31 2006, 09:30 AM

[ChuckL]

Haven.t put any flashing in as of yet, need to get a fresh blade for the jig first so I can do a clean cut but it is on my list. So far I think I can probally get away with no flashing as the engine is very efficent at getting rid of heat. Ran it 4 hours last night and no problems. The MDF gets warm but not hot but I will do it anyway. Have to go to HD today and pick up odds and ends.

Do you think a 250v10a switch is enough for the 4uf cap? I have one of these on hand, Rat Shack doesn't have anything larger that this and I would have to use a house switch if I need somthing bigger unless I go searching. Just not a lot of electronic stores around here.

This post has been edited by ChuckL: Mar 31 2006, 04:00 PM