New ballast box

Thought I'd share this with any future Lighting DIY'ers out there.

Here's a shot of an 8x10x8 electrical box I rescued from a junk bin to house the ballasts for our lighting. So far it's working out great. Drill a few holes, a few mongo pop rivits later and viola. In there now are just two Advanced 71A3592 ballasts to drive the 250w Iwasaki's. We have a MAGNETEK 1030-93-500K ballast due in tommorrow to drive the 400w, there should be plenty of room to fit it into the top portion of the box.

So far it's working out well. Looks like I may need to add a fan to it to help keep things cool, with just the 250's in there it gets a tad bit warm since it's sealed up pretty tight (actually it was a watertight enclosure). Noise isn't too bad, a bit of vibration hum but I think it's more from resonating inside the box. I'll sort it out after I get the 400 in there.

All connections but those going to the lights (for now) are all soldered and covered with heat shrink tubing to help prevent and of the smoke from falling out.

Easy stuff :)

I did the same thing with my ballasts except I put them outside the house.

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Originally Posted by BUGZME

I did the same thing with my ballasts except I put them outside the house.

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Outside the house...like through the wall outside? Hmmmm I've drilled quite a number of holes though the walls in the house, running antenna cables and stuff... think Angel will notice a couple more? I left the runs to lamps (used 12/3) about 4 feet longer than needed for future moves... hmmm got me thinking now..

Yes I mounted all 4 of them in 2 weatherproof boves and fished the lamp wires through the walls. That way I use a relay and can have them running on 240 volts to save a little money.

That's some pretty good thinking there. These are all multi-tap ballasts, sticker says 120V @ .9A and 220V @ .4A Guess that .1A would save a little on the 'lectric bill.. Any idea if driving them with 220 would have any effect on the output? ie maybe drive the bulbs a little harder?

No there is no difference from 120 to 220. 220 uses the power better because you have 2 phases.