Dimmable T5

[Ippyroy]

I am in the middle of planning out the lights I want to use. The LET retrofit T5s are what I have decided on. My question is about the dimmable version. They say you have to burn them in for 100 hours. This seems like it makes the dimmable feature useless. In order to do that after each set goes out you would have to reprogram your lighting schedule correct? It would then take over a week to "burn in" the new set and make changing out 1/2 of the lights at a time virtually impossible, or am I missing something?

 

[Daniel Waters]

I am in the middle of planning out the lights I want to use. The LET retrofit T5s are what I have decided on. My question is about the dimmable version. They say you have to burn them in for 100 hours. This seems like it makes the dimmable feature useless. In order to do that after each set goes out you would have to reprogram your lighting schedule correct? It would then take over a week to "burn in" the new set and make changing out 1/2 of the lights at a time virtually impossible, or am I missing something?

I've never ran dimmable as I don't think it's needed, but I can see why some people might prefer that option.

I suspect you could buy a separate (cheap) ballast to burn 2 bulbs in at a time. Burn 2 in, replace 2 bulbs in the main unit. Start burn in with two new bulbs on the separate ballast. Repeat till you've replaced all your bulbs.

 

[Ippyroy]

I've never ran dimmable as I don't think it's needed, but I can see why some people might prefer that option.

I suspect you could buy a separate (cheap) ballast to burn 2 bulbs in at a time. Burn 2 in, replace 2 bulbs in the main unit. Start burn in with two new bulbs on the separate ballast. Repeat till you've replaced all your bulbs.

That is the only thing I can figure out. So 5 days straight of burning a light. Just doesn't seem feasible to me. I am just wondering if there is a true advantage to it.

 

[Daniel Waters]

That is the only thing I can figure out. So 5 days straight of burning a light. Just doesn't seem feasible to me. I am just wondering if there is a true advantage to it.

True advantage to using a dimmable T5 or true advantage to burning the lights in? Personally, no real advantage to having the dimmable T5 unless you prefer it to fine tune the color / brightness (the corals can handle the intensity easily enough from T5 bulbs). As far as advantage to burning them in, then I believe most definitely (but I can't remember what the reasoning is off hand- I think the bulb life gets reduced significantly if not burned in properly and then you use the dimming feature).

Your other option is simply to replace all your bulbs at once, run them for a week or two at 100% (but perhaps shorten your duration if you are worried about too much par), and the change your schedule back to normal after the burn in time. I don't see any need to replace bulbs every 2 to 3 weeks as long as you adjust your photo period length to account for the higher par after the bulb change. With LED's, I'd never do a 20 - 25% intensity bump even with a shorter photo period, but with T5's I am perfectly willing to change all my bulbs at once and just adjust my photo period to a shorter time period. Note, I use the 20 to 25% figure as I believe that's a pretty good estimate of the par % drop after about a year of use for most T5 bulbs.