Eletrical question Idea

Reef obcession

New member
Guys,

Im trying to set up my lights on a sort of timing control with diming capabilities. Right now my actinics go on and off at its set ime, and so do all 4 halides.
I want the halides lights to come on , but mostly off with a diming to off feature.

Ive looked everywhere and come up with nothing, does anybody know of a control that will work?

Thanks Bill
 
Bill mopst fluourscents can not be easily dimmed. I am not sure what type of bulbs you have, but you would need a dimming ballast and a means of automactically controlling the dimming circuit. I think a few of the reef controllers will work with industry standard 0-10V dimming ballasts. I built my own solution, but it is not something that is going to be easy for a non electronics DIYer :)
 
Well,

I have Oceanballast M 250H-2 ballests since I have a Aqua Medic 4-250w, 4 39 actinic's.

My idea is only to dim the halides on and off. Im a Mechanical Project manager in the city and build sky risers so Im sure I can handle it :)
 
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Your ballasts are not dimmable... they would need to be replaced by dimmable ballasts. Dimming MH ballasts exist, but their effectiveness and bulb life is questionable. Dimming T5 ballasts are easy to buy and install, but controlling them is going to be complicated unless you know a bit about 0-10V dimming.

Without knowing the ballast configuration, it is hard tell you what your options for turning off individual lamps are. I would guess you could turn the Halides on/off in groups of two and the same for the Actinics but I have never seen the actaul ballast configuration in the oceanlight you have.
 
thanks Bean,

For now I will do it in pairs, but later when I build my 600g I will put some serious thought into the lighting.
 
LED lighting is about the only option that is 'easily' dimmable. For a large tank like a 600, you might be able to achieve a dimming effect by mounting a bunch of shorter T5 lamps horizontally across the tank and having them turn on/off in succession. This will limit other options though, depending on how you mount the lamps. They may block your halides if you're going with a mixture of lighting. I really don't think MH is suitable for dimming, they more or less take a while to come on full strength, not sure how you would dim them effectively on shut down. Perhaps a physical filter of some sort.
 
Dimmable T5 ballasts are readily available from Advance, Phillips and a few other companies. I have an advance dimmable T5 that is controlled via a 0-10V output from a DIY microcontroller that does sunrise/sunset simulation :)
 
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