# halogen work lights from hardware store



## northtexasfossilguy (Mar 6, 2009)

Anybody ever thought of using the 150 or 250watt work lights from like Home Depot for aquarium lighting? They have a high output for like $20, I was wondering if they could be converted to run any of the HQI bulbs for plants?










With some simple mods you could put this under a hood, or add some better looking case to it. The problem is that these get hot, however they come with the UV tempered glass, and at $20 compared to $150, it seems to me to be worth it.

Thoughts?


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

Short answer, they don't work very well.


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## northtexasfossilguy (Mar 6, 2009)

The spectral output seems to have peaks at 600, 720, and 840 nm for a tungsten bulb, not really the peaks for plants, eh?

I take it that the balasts are different for HQI lights as well.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

nothing about them is the same as halides. diffrent socket, ballest, reflecter.... etc etc.

That is a filment bulb, halides use a electric arc in a gas.


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## fishyerik (Oct 8, 2008)

What's expensive to buy, and you can't build for next to nothing on a metal halide fixture is the ballast and the bulb, exactly the same things you wont get with that lamp, thats the reason it seems cheap. 

I've used that type in the past, when the house is heated with electricity and it's cold outside the low efficiency is not economical a problem, the spectrum isn't the best achievable for growing plants, but not very bad either. Because its much more on the red side then blue, plants tend to grow/build biomass well, but high light reactions like reddening and really compact/low growth is hard to achieve. 

The reflector isn't the best achievable either, but it's good enough for the fixture to almost be able to compete with standard aquarium fluorescent fixtures from 20-30 years ago in terms of light for the plants in the aquarium per watt.

Even if you have use for the heat that most of the electricity is converted to there is still a problem with those lamps, the bulbs have very short lifespan, without cooling in room temperature a month should be considered great. 

I've read in a Swedish forum about a person who found relatively cheap HQI ballast and bulb on Internet auction site or similar and "converted" with good result, the ballast and bulb still was most of the total cost. 

Here in Sweden one can buy the same type of lamp without the handle and net for a fraction of the cost of those with, should be same for you, look in low price stores.


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## evilc66 (Mar 5, 2008)

Wow. You guys don't read very closely do you? He was looking to use it to convert to a MH setup.

These are used in reef MH retros all the time, especially for 70W. The socket is near enough the same, and once you get a ballast from Ballastwise ($30) and a bulb, you have a fairly decent fixture for under $100. To use 150W bulbs, you have to make modifications to the socket, as the bulbs are a different length. You have to use the 300-500W lights for the conversion, and can usually be found for about $10.


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