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RobbyG
I am running the lamps as we speak. You can't expect the power usage to follow a curve based on what it takes to normally drive them. By overdriving the lamps we are forcing more current through them than they were designed for. The original design (for industrial and commercial uses) was developed to run at the most efficient wattage possible. For our purposes that might not always be enough.
You are off base about what running twice as many lamps will do. The brighter the intensity of the source, the farther away from it the light travels. If you measured the output of 4 lamps over an empty tank of water then added 4 more lamps you wouldn't gain all that much PAR/lumens/lux at the bottom. all you are really doing is making the light more consistant across the bottom so you will see a small gain but not much. If you took those first 4 lamps and made them run 40% brighter you would see a 40% gain at the bottom.
I just rechecked my notes from the halides and each ballasts is actually drawing 2.34 amps so I am using 4.68 amps to put 95 UMOL's of PAR at the sandbed. I get 183 using 4.1 amps for the T5's to cover the same area as those 2 halides. Why the hell wouldn't I use Ice Cap?
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Grim tells it like it is.
Last year the SEC was the strongest conference but overrated. This year they were just overrated.
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