Hi,

I'm from the UK and have been trawling through the forums here and have found a few lighting systems on some local auction sites.

This description I found for one:

This Thorn lighting system is ideal for growing any type of herb in the vegatative stage (pre-flowering) and will arrive ready to be plugged in for instant illumination. The light has a remote ballast that can be placed outside of the grow area to reduce heat build up. The parabolic reflector is the most efficient method of concentrating light in a small area as there is no light leakage, unlike open ended reflectors. The auction includes the following.

Metal Halide 400 Watt Bulb (CRI of 4000k/Warm White)
Light Weight Aluminium Parabolic Reflector
Remote 400 Watt Ballast With Aluminium Case
High Temperature Ceramic Bulb Holder
Connecting Wiring

It says the lamp is a WARM WHITE I thought if this isn't quite right I could change it for a different bulb.

I also found this one:
400w Lamp and ballast with high presure sodium lamp for flowering and metal halide lamp for green growth.

It has a short power lead(nothing an extention cant sort out) but has a long lead from ballast to the lamp.

well built lamp unit by gro light tecnology.

Could anyone tell me if either of these are worth buying and if so which is better.

Thanks
beany

The MH sounds similar to the EYE bulb in color temp which is I think around 4200k? The main problem may be just how big is the bulb? Will it fit inside an enclosure that you can live with?

Hi beany,

Did you get an idea of the prices? I bet they are expensive.

Have you looked in the Uk Lighting thread? It's in the global community forum, there are some links to good lighting rigs there.

Let me know

It wasn't as expensive as some of the ones on the links, but as it was all together it would save some messing about.

The light isn't that big from what I can tell it looks like the size of the 400U lamp pictured in the guide.

Would the warm white colour of the light be okay?

I think it might be ok, 4000k is a fine temperature, I just think 'warm white' means 'not quite perfectly white'.

You could try it. Have you got a link to this place you found the kit or is it a local place? I'd like to take a look at it.

My only worry with these kits is compatibility with other lamps, should you want to change it. You should enquire about that.

Oh btw, you would want to use a condenser lens if you are going to implement a parabolic reflector. They are not ideal.

They would collimate the light you see, and ideally you should have a reflector that would bounce the light back to the source, a hemispherical bowl would be best for this ala: the norpro.

With the second kit you mentioned, it sounds like the ballast will be a HPS one, and the lamps used with it would be conversion MH and Sodium lamps. I may be wrong.

There's better routes out there, trust me.

you do not need an elaberate light engine with our setups.

Just use the 400w with reflector, 4000k is good for our project