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Re: MH lighting



I'm just in the process of finishing a home built MH setup, and I
thought you might be interested in the cost savings:
I've had a good look at all the commercially available setups and the
cheapest comes out at around 23,000pts (it doesn't matter what a pt is
worth, this is a comparison). I thought that this was a bit steep, so I
looked at the cost of a ballast (5900pts), bulb (3000pts) and bulb
holder (1200pts) giving, so far, a grand total of 9,200pts. I'm still
looking for a suitable reflector, but don't expect to fork out more than
1000pts for that, and I'll need to put some form of glass protector, in
case of lamp failure, in front of the bulb. In addition, I'm thinking
about some sort of "barn doors" on the housing to allow control of light
spillage, but this will probably come later. This will leave me with a
total price of something in the region of 11-12,000 pts per light as
opposed to the commercial equivalent at 23,000!
If you are reasonably capable with saw, screwdriver etc., MHs are a
piece of cake to install, the big problem is sourcing the components,
prices for bulbs vary from 3,000 pts (specialist industrial lighting
outfit) to over 6,000pts (rip-off lighting shop) or more (lfs).
Similarly, if you go to a lfs, you'll get a system that works first time
out (but then so does mine), has a guarantee (so does mine - I just have
to take the components to different places) but doesn't need to be
understood. However, if I'm spending a lot of lucre on lights, I _want_
to know how it works:-). I think the most important thing when doing it
D.I.Y. is to find a _good_ industrial lighting shop where they don't
look at you sideways when you start talking about MH lighting.
Whatever you choose, good luck.

C:-)lin