What are you guys basing this on? There definitely are types of lights that scale down to 60hz instead of 120hz when lowering to 50% thereby increasing its lifespan by two.
I have a socket power meter. I'll let you know if it decreases power or not.
The manufacturer of my selectable ballast recommends different bulbs for each decrease in power. 100% needs 600 watt bulb, 75% needs a 450 watt bulb, and 50% needs a 300 watt bulb.
Hi~how are you going to decrease the wattage~ If you do it with a rheostat~ the rheostat will us wattage you don't allow to the bulb```
If you use a variable resistor ( a rheostat ) it will heat up using current allowing less to the light```
Yes~ I would think half the wattage and the bulb will should last longer```
seth
Oh, I see a ballast```I think I'd use the correct bulb for the ballast```Unless you've a friend who has done what you're thinking about with good results```
I cant swear to it but I think the digital ballasts work similar to the digital fan controllers. They use signal modulation to turn the voltage off and on at different frequencies, adjusting the load cycles for the different settings. By doing this you actually don't need to shunt off the excess power. By digitally turning the voltage off and on gives an actual power use that is less by the % of off time to on time in the given duty cycle. I think that is how they do it.
I used to work on electric forklifts that had 700Ah batteries in 24v, 36v, and 72v. They use this same method to control the drive speed. By rapidly turning on and off "power transistors" they could control both speed and heat.
Cool FYI: if you take a car or propane forklift and put them beneath HID lighting, so that the light shines on the engine/radiator fan, you can adjust the speed of the engine and watch the fan match the same frequency as the light. This will make the fan appear to stand still even though it is turning rapidly. If you speed up the engine, the fan turns faster than the light frequency then it will appear to move in one direction, but if you slow it down, it will appear to turn in the opposite direction.