Good, cheap ballast and lights

[Nitecrawler]

Hey guys,

I'm not very knowledgeable about fluorescent lights and ballasts and stuff, so maybe you could point me in the right direction. I have a little shelf of plants at my dorm and currently they are lit by two desk lamps sporting CFLs. The length of my pots right now is just one foot, but I would be looking into getting maybe a two foot ballast.

I am looking to just buy one of these because I think my desk lamps are too high wattage for the CFLs...my first one burned out after only like 3500 hours.

Let me know what you guys think.

Here are some pics of the setup.

 

[D_muscipula]

check homedepot or lowes for a four foot shoplight they should be around 8-9$
ps its not on there website check the store in person.

 

[Nitecrawler]

Thanks man, I was looking around the website to no avail.

 

[MrFlyTrap2]

Just as an FYI, the desk lamp doesn't decide the wattage that the bulb will get or take. The bulb will draw as much current as it wants. Perhaps you ran into an issue where the bulb was being touched a lot while on (adjusting) or the bulb got too hot since the desk lamp couldn't vent enough heat that the bulb would output.

If you don't care about how it looks:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=203213-1373-FL-300PDQ12&lpage=none

These clip onto shelves, poles etc, and would give a little more breathing room for your bulb than those desk lamps are.

Maybe that would help your burn out problem.

Nate

 

[geckoman]

What MrFlyTrap2 said,
I have one of those works great.......But be careful because they get VERY hot.

-Joshua

 

[dking]

hi Nitecrawler
ive tried both a 2x2ft florescent and 2 cfl's for my terrarium and found that i got better light from the cfl's. the clamp lights that MrFlyTrap2 suggested work great and are available from lows and home depot. i did find that the 8 1/2" ones were not deep enough and the cfl bulb stuck out the end causing extra light spill. switching to the 10 1/2" fixed that and helped reduce the heat buildup. i use 2 of them minus the clamps for my little 10g terrarium and they work great. i would suggest trying the bulb in the fixture at the store because some cfl's are longer than others.

darren

 

[Nitecrawler]

Ah...that looks good. Thanks for all the info, guys.