T5-vho

hey guys, just wondering if any of you T5 people have noticed the T5-VHO bulbs? 40 watts for 24", 60 for 36" and 85 for 48".... i was just sitting on the pot flipping through my drs. foster and smith catalog, and saw them there... they don't really tell you much, but i've done some studying, and apparently, you have to buy an IceCap ballast to make the T5-VHO's work (to get the full 85 watts from each bulb)... but the bulbs are cheaper than the regular T5's...

i just wonder if i could fit the icecap inside my current USA nova extreme? i don't want to have to buy a new housing..

i guess for now, i'll commence to tearing my lights apart to see if i could replace the ballast! wish me luck, i'll give an update here in a little while...

 

well, took out the reflector, and i don't know if it would work... the original ballasts (2 of them actually), are long and skinny, whereas the icecap seems wider (just from looking at a single picture)...however, it looks like it MAY fit under the reflector (or above, depending on how you look at it)... what i mean, is that the icecap looks wide and flat, and it looks like it MAY be able to be sandwiched between the reflector and top of the housing... but i wonder if that would cause heat issues...

 

i read from a guy that did it and he said that the bulbs did'nt last as long and the color was'nt the same ,but thats just something a read in a forum.

 

odd... seems to me that if its the same style of bulb, just higher wattage, then it should show the same light, just brighter... did he mention anything about the ballast he used? if he just replaced the bulbs without getting new electronics, then yeah, that may have caused a problem.. and if he upgraded, do you think it might be possible that the wiring was messed up somehow or another? either miswiring or just bad connections.. the only thing i've been able to find about them is that a guy on another forum mentions the use of an icecap 660... google just pulled up a lot of comparisons between t5 and regular VHO bulbs..apparently, google didn't realize that T5 and VHO was supposed to go together in the search, or i just can't figure out the right combination to find the right info...

 

he used icecap