Category: Grow Lights

Ballast

A HID grow light needs a ballast to get started. A ballast is a special type of power supply that regulates current to your light and also provides enough voltage to start your lights.

The ballast is like the running car needed to jump start a dead one and if your ballast is not powerful enough for your bulbs then they will not start due to a lack of voltage.

Types Of HID Bulbs

The type of gas inside of the bulb determines the light color

MH – Metal Halide

• Used for vegetative state

HPS – High Pressure Sodium

• Used during flower

Exhaust

These bulbs burn hot so to control the temperature an exhaust system that incorporates the light’s hood and acts as a housing for the bulb is often used. This allows the bulb’s excess heat to be constantly removed and a stable temperature can be maintained much more easily.

These LED lights really are amazing and have come such a long way in a very short period of time. The 2014 Nobel Prize for physics went to the inventors of the blue LED. The blue LED is needed in the production of other colors like white and is the reason LED grow lights are even possible today.

LEDs provide us with with much more light while using the same amount of electricity when compared to older High Intensity Discharge technologies. They are much more efficient because they turn less energy into heat which allows growers better control.

Most LED grow lights will still need fans to help cool them down but can get away with fans that very closely resemble computer fans.