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Re: Mounting ballasts close together
Mark Hood asked about electronic ballasts:
> They would be mounted to
> the back
> of the tank one above the other, but side by side. At most I could
> get 1
> inch between them. Would this effect the ballasts in any way.
>
> Mark
It's unlikely that the heat from the ballasts is enough to adversely
affect one another. With Electronic ballasts, maybe 5-10% of the
system watts are being passed off as heat from the ballasts, so on a
150 watt light that's about 7-15 watts. If air can pass over the
ballasts (i.e., they aren't enclosed in a small box), I don't think you
would have any problem. In fact, if they are now in the hood and you
are moving them out of the hood, they might actually run a bit cooler ,
which won't hurt anything. On the other hand, if you're running, say
400 watts per ballast, then it starts to add up, but then you probably
have IceCap ballasts and they don't get very hot anyhow, and they come
with huge heat sinks.
If you did find afterwards that the ballasts ran noticeably hotter,
which I doubt, you could remount them with a u-shaped plate as a heat
sink -- a couple of layers of some aluminum flashing from Home Depot
will do.
Hope that helps,
Scott H.
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