I have one Jebo and one Odyssea light fixture, they are both 36" 96W Power Compact type. When I measure power usage with Kill-A-Watt they are both using only 60W.
I figured something is wrong and upgraded the ballasts to Workhorse 5. I am using all 4 wires from Workhorse so my lighbulb is overdriven by 1/4.
The lights are now using 112W and when measured with my DSLR light output is doubled. The plants started pearling after few minutes.
I wanted to report my findings so people who buy cheap light fixtures can have a reference of what to expect. I would still buy these light fixtures because they are really cheap but would upgrade the ballast immediately instead of waiting for 2 years to do it. Even with new ballast they are still cheap.
Out of curiosity I opened two ballasts that I replaced, one of them looked ok, the other one looked like something out of the russian factory from 1960 and about the same age, with components leaking everywhere. And that ballast was not in the light exposed to high temperature.
I figured something is wrong and upgraded the ballasts to Workhorse 5. I am using all 4 wires from Workhorse so my lighbulb is overdriven by 1/4.
The lights are now using 112W and when measured with my DSLR light output is doubled. The plants started pearling after few minutes.
I wanted to report my findings so people who buy cheap light fixtures can have a reference of what to expect. I would still buy these light fixtures because they are really cheap but would upgrade the ballast immediately instead of waiting for 2 years to do it. Even with new ballast they are still cheap.
Out of curiosity I opened two ballasts that I replaced, one of them looked ok, the other one looked like something out of the russian factory from 1960 and about the same age, with components leaking everywhere. And that ballast was not in the light exposed to high temperature.