Radium metal halide bulbs will not be produced anymore!

[Pyrogens]

Reading along here for the past hour or so, and after my recent inquiry into Hamilton about them "sourcing" raw materials to manufacture Halide fixtures and bulbs again, I encourage anyone who wants new bulbs and fixtures produced again to give them a call. Seriously.

I really do hope it all comes to fruition, as I've said in the past that I'm sick of the lighting options on the market currently. I can't remember the last time I've struggled this hard with decision making in this hobby on equipment. I've used and tried lots of different fixtures over the years, and I still rank LEDs below Halides, T5HO, and hell even T5VHOs... But that's my opinion.

 

[PaulErik]

The Huaquan 110/120 ballast isn’t exactly the same as the original M80. The capacitor is directly in series with the bulb. This causes a higher current crest factor because the waveform is more distorted from this setup. Will put more wear on the bulb than other ballasts. The capacitor has to be selected carefully. One rating is designed for 110 volts input and another for 120 volts input. The 110 volt setup can overdrive M80 spec bulbs. Had some phoenix and radium bulbs with bowed and bloated arc tubes from this.

 

[jda]

How did AquaMedic do it? Those things have been extremely reliable and powerful. I have reliably run Phoenix 14k for 2 years with these for years. I have only had on/off switches fail.

I have some that say m80 on the ballast and others that do not.

If you can get these parts still, I can take some m80 cubes apart and take photos.

 

[Troylee]

Check out these beauties... For anybody who thinks that ATI makes good T5 bulbs, the UVL Super and White Actinic T5 have colors that will blow your mind.

I need to organize my stuff and get it into some hands of people who can use it. Of course I will hoard anything that I might use.

Xm20k was my go to back in the day! Now I got de so I’m running Phoenix and they’re getting hard to find!

 

[Nonya]

Listen, this is not 2012, we are way past the LEDs save power argument.

That's not true by any stretch. I've never heard of a MH running as cool as an LED. Plasma in a MH puts out serious heat.

They were only more efficient when people made bad choices. LEDs can be less efficient with bad choices too - dude near me had a 800w home made LED rig that put out less PAR on my Apogee 510 than a 6x T5 did.

Anecdotal. Although, as energy efficient as T-5s are compared to halides, I'd be interested in knowing the actual amperage to determine if he was actually using 800 watts on his DIY system. As I've experienced, so many Chinese LED products are severely under-driven because they know they'd either start a fire or burn out the LEDs if they really ran as much power as advertised.

AcroOptics come to mind of very powerful LED units that don't put out much output for the wattage - those things double as heaters too.

IME that's evidence of overdriving and/or poor heat dissipation method. Sounds like an example of worst of breed.

I don't think that anybody needs to rehash this... if you choose well, it is going to be about the same. I don't need any argument of worst of breed X vs best of breed Y

Didn't you just do that here? You compared an 800W DIY vs 6 x T-5

- compare the best of breeds and this all goes away.

Strongly disagree. MH bulbs will always run in the hundreds of degrees. The higher the wattage, the more heat produced as waste. My old 250s would bubble the skin on contact. Would you grab a MH bulb just after it was shut off? My Radions at this moment measured 90.5F at full intensity of blue-violet, and the top of the fixture is 87F. I can touch them all day long.

Heat can be good or bad... for most of us who have to use heaters, it is a wash. If you can avoid a chiller, then maybe one is better, but that also likely means that you live in a climate where you probably want a chiller for safety anyway.

Misleading. First, I don't know of anyone who keeps their house at 78 degrees, so a heater is essentially required. Heating the house with excess heat from MH bulbs is probably a lot more expensive, and you can't expect to switch lighting on and off to maintain a constant room temp or tank temp. Chillers? If you don't air condition in a hot summer then yes. 80F is when I switch on a chiller.

 

[t5Nitro]

without reading the long posts, I glanced at some comments regarding heating the tanks with lights. Agree all the way when you’re in a climate that utilizes heaters. The 400 watt halides that help keep my tank warm are better than running 600 watt heaters all day.

A watt is a watt.

 

[jda]

That's not true by any stretch. I've never heard of a MH running as cool as an LED. Plasma in a MH puts out serious heat.

Anecdotal. Although, as energy efficient as T-5s are compared to halides, I'd be interested in knowing the actual amperage to determine if he was actually using 800 watts on his DIY system. As I've experienced, so many Chinese LED products are severely under-driven because they know they'd either start a fire or burn out the LEDs if they really ran as much power as advertised.

IME that's evidence of overdriving and/or poor heat dissipation method. Sounds like an example of worst of breed.

Didn't you just do that here? You compared an 800W DIY vs 6 x T-5

Strongly disagree. MH bulbs will always run in the hundreds of degrees. The higher the wattage, the more heat produced as waste. My old 250s would bubble the skin on contact. Would you grab a MH bulb just after it was shut off? My Radions at this moment measured 90.5F at full intensity of blue-violet, and the top of the fixture is 87F. I can touch them all day long.

Misleading. First, I don't know of anyone who keeps their house at 78 degrees, so a heater is essentially required. Heating the house with excess heat from MH bulbs is probably a lot more expensive, and you can't expect to switch lighting on and off to maintain a constant room temp or tank temp. Chillers? If you don't air condition in a hot summer then yes. 80F is when I switch on a chiller.

Nope. You are working from paper and theory. We already discussed in this thread where a pair of 150w HQI bulbs would likely do the same thing as your LED setup for the same wattage... or maybe even a touch better but not likely worth discussing. All of the paper arguments are gone now that we have enough in-practice setups and stuff. There is no electrical savings to speak of. This has been covered for going on a decade... and that was before all of the improvements to make bulbs run cooler than they did.

 

[Nonya]

A watt is a watt.

If you're referring to input, that's true. Not true if you're referring to heat output. A 1,000W MH bulb doesn't produce light with every watt of power input. Heat is actually a waste product. A 1,000W heater is designed to produce maximum heat output as the primary product (note there's no light produced).

 

[Reefering1]

 

[Nonya]

Nope. You are working from paper and theory. We already discussed in this thread where a pair of 150w HQI bulbs would likely do the same thing as your LED setup for the same wattage... or maybe even a touch better but not likely worth discussing. All of the paper arguments are gone now that we have enough in-practice setups and stuff. There is no electrical savings to speak of. This has been covered for going on a decade... and that was before all of the improvements to make bulbs run cooler than they did.

Odd, I thought we were discussing the 800W DIY LED and best vs worst of breed. So how "cool" does the 150W HQI feel to the touch?

 

[Reefering1]

If you're referring to input, that's true. Not true if you're referring to heat output. A 1,000W MH bulb doesn't produce light with every watt of power input. Heat is actually a waste product. A 1,000W heater is designed to produce maximum heat output as the primary product (note there's no light produced).

Dude, go spam somewhere else. We were having a conversation

 

[jda]

I had heard once that Huaquan can still supply the case and all of that stuff - like you just put your sticker on it. I don't know since I never wrote them. They are a for-profit Chinese company, so I just wonder what their minimum is or if they have some stock around that none of us can find since their website sucks (at least it does for me).

 

[Nonya]

Dude, go spam somewhere else. We were having a conversation

Not a very well informed one.

 

[Reefering1]

Sounds like something worth looking into.. @A. grandis , you're up!! What's the time difference to China?

 

[Z Burn's Reefing]

Anyone ever tried these before? Looks like they have 10ks in stock too...

Not sure if these are the original ushios from back in the day or not...

https://www.bulbstock.com/products/ushio-aqualite™-5002093-uhi-s250aq-20-cwa-250w-20-000k-t15-metal-halide-lamp-20656?variant=4657110679585&sfdr_ptcid=21424_4_318327177&sfdr_hash=d9394110014126ea5ac2cc3deb4a1895&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=&scid=scplp355649060897&sc_intid=355649060897&gclid=CjwKCAiAvJarBhA1EiwAGgZl0OznKFTNXpqVXeOQMeKgWivV_Z11EQnOgFXhjSiItRQYx_JAmvSO9BoCrmQQAvD_BwE

 

[Reefering1]

Their de 10ks look amazing. A bit brighter and whiter than pheonix. Never seen one running on a m58

 

[Nonya]

Nope. You are working from paper and theory. We already discussed in this thread where a pair of 150w HQI bulbs would likely do the same thing as your LED setup for the same wattage... or maybe even a touch better but not likely worth discussing. All of the paper arguments are gone now that we have enough in-practice setups and stuff. There is no electrical savings to speak of. This has been covered for going on a decade... and that was before all of the improvements to make bulbs run cooler than they did.

You haven't addressed a single comment regarding your post. As far as 2 HQIs replacing my LEDs, that's not part of the discussion regarding heat and wattage. Perhaps blowing things off as paper and theory is due to an inability to address specifics with anything but broad statements. I made valid points as part of a valid debate of the facts and all I'm getting back is open hostility.

 

[jda]

Ushio makes very high quality bulbs that are pretty true to their Kelvin rating. Ushio has SE buls on their site still... 10k and 20k in 250w and 10k and 14k in 400w. They have long hourly lives too that you can usually use for 2 years.

 

[minus9]

Anyone ever tried these before? Looks like they have 10ks in stock too...

Not sure if these are the original ushios from back in the day or not...

https://www.bulbstock.com/products/ushio-aqualite™-5002093-uhi-s250aq-20-cwa-250w-20-000k-t15-metal-halide-lamp-20656?variant=4657110679585&sfdr_ptcid=21424_4_318327177&sfdr_hash=d9394110014126ea5ac2cc3deb4a1895&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=&scid=scplp355649060897&sc_intid=355649060897&gclid=CjwKCAiAvJarBhA1EiwAGgZl0OznKFTNXpqVXeOQMeKgWivV_Z11EQnOgFXhjSiItRQYx_JAmvSO9BoCrmQQAvD_BwE

Ushio's are great bulbs. I've only used 10k & 14k from them and never had an issue.

 

[jda]

You haven't addressed a single comment regarding your post. As far as 2 HQIs replacing my LEDs, that's not part of the discussion regarding heat and wattage. Perhaps blowing things off as paper and theory is due to an inability to address specifics with anything but broad statements. I made valid points as part of a valid debate of the facts and all I'm getting back is hostility in reply.

I don't care. I have discussed this for a decade and it has gone away and nearly everybody has gotten here but you. Catch up. You don't save power by running one type of light over another unless you made a bad choice.