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dmanshep View Drop Down
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Joined: October 11 2002
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    Posted: July 28 2005 at 2:58pm
Hello,

I have 2 4 foot aquaspacelights with 4 x 250W HQI's I have been researching these lights on another board and alot of people are having problems with the ballast's burning up.. I don't want my house to catch fire and I also want to get rid of the magnetic ballast in the fixture to save on power.. My thought is to remotly mount a ballast or 2 for each fixture in the basement to control the MH bulbs. Has anyone had any experiance with the ARO MH ballasts typically sold locally?

Any suggestions or better ideas of how to deal with this quandry?

thanks
Dan
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ewaldsreef View Drop Down
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Points: 3752 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ewaldsreef Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 28 2005 at 3:29pm
I installed aro 250w Mh ballists on a friends tank that I helped setup about 2 years ago. No problems. I am also running 2 aro vho ballists on my tank currently. No problems. The thing I dont like about the space light is it seems like everything is in a confined space.
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Points: 42 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Desert Reef Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 28 2005 at 3:36pm

Dan -

From what I read on the Aquaspacelights, it was the older design (+4 years ago) that was having that problem - the plastic parts inside would degrade and just heat up too much. Have you looked inside to see how everything is looking?

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dmanshep View Drop Down
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yeah.. that's what makes me nervous.. About two months ago the day before I was leaving on a cruise for a week the spacelight went to come on and boom one of the fixtures shoots fire out the top and throws the tanks deticated breaker.. Scarry stuff.. come to find out the power wire to the ballast was run right passed the light reflector and heated up the wire and fused it together thus a short.. I of course re-wired it but I have been considering baggin their lame internal design and just using the housing for a nice retro looking bulb holder and mount all the electronics in the basement.. I'm rather un impressed with the fixtures in general, they look nice however not reliable both sets of power compacts in either fixture have since stopped working.. and these lights are like just over a year old..

anyone know how far away the ballast can be mounted from the bulb?
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my sls pendants have 15' cords
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Mark Peterson View Drop Down
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Points: 21437 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 28 2005 at 4:55pm
An ordinary extension cord can provide power to a MH from a remote ballast.

I'm constantly seeing PC ballasts gone bad on those fixtures. The internal heat causes some eventual problems for other components as well.
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dmanshep View Drop Down
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Points: 703 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dmanshep Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 28 2005 at 5:20pm
Hindsite 20/20 the lights are cool looking however they are a pretty weak product all together.. I will probably opt for something less integrated in the future.

It reminds me of buying a motherboard with onboard components , just don't make much sense at this point..
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