I want to get a 100W HPS setup going, and it looks like I have two options. Here's a ballast for $18, and a bulb for $6:

100 Watt High Pressure Sodium
100 watt HID High Pressure Sodium Bulbs: 1000Bulbs.com

And here's a ballast for $50 and a bulb for $17:

100W HPS Ballast Kit S54 Quad Tap - ProLighting.com
LU100/MED|C100S54/M|100W HPS Bulb Medium Base Clear - ProLighting.com

WTF?? Which one should I get? I mean, how big could the difference possibly be? And yeah, I definately want to go cheap!

ok screw it, i'm going to order the more expensive ones. that's probably the way it should be anyway. thanks a lot for the quick replies, lol.. go ahead and delete this thread since no one seems to care (yes, i'm probably over-reacting).

wholesale lighting Capacitors hid metal halide hps and supplies
High Pressure Sodium ballasts

spend a little extra and get at least a 250w......only 52 bucks on the second link, they're reliable too, so is hidquickfix. You're money will be way better spent and your plants will thank you for more light

Make sure the ballast you get matches the bulb you use. Such as S51 ballast must be used with S51 compatible bulb. You can get a really awesome deal on a 400w metal halide/hps combo set single socket from htgsupply.com for around $170.00 not to advertise but that's a good deal!

hi, well, I already bought the 100w HPS bulb/ballast the 2nd one I listed). they claimed that it would be prewired, but it wasn't, and I don't have the equipment to do it, so I was like screw it, I'll use it for a later grow, for now I'll just use cfl's.

You can achieve a better canopy and a more balanced spectrum with cfls, I dont think a 100w hps is an effiecient enough light bother with. Just an opinion.

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I AM NOT A CONNOISSEUR, I AM A POTHEAD.

how it all started:

http://boards.cannabis.com/closet-ca...light=mrabrego

an abandoned thread:

http://boards.cannabis.com/closet-ca...=cactus+clones

Yes... I would go with a 250 hps lamp at the least. That will work with a fairly small closet grow.

you'll need ATLEAST a 400w HPS for flowering if you dont want your vegging anfd cloning to be a waste of time. you can veg nice moms with 100w of CFL, though.