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Re: Halide Lights for Seedlings

On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, R. Beer wrote:

> less of course.  I have actually seen the 250 watt used in a living room;
> it was hidden a bit and they had it lighting a whole corner; it was a
> beautiful display.  When installing one, you need to make sure that it is
> a foot or so away from the ceiling because it does put out a good bit of
> heat.  And make sure you never accidentally spray water on one, or they
> will break and implode, well, just like a regular house lamp would but
> much louder and more spectacularly.  And if perchance it *does* happen
> (though I've never actually witnessed this), you want to get away from it
> and not look at the light, because it does produce UV and without the
> outer glass it could do some eye damage before it just burns out.

If there's a safety glass cover available for the fixture, *get it*.  I've
seen one implode and shatter, and I've seen less damage done by hand
grenades. 

Most of the fixtures still have an amazing amount of UV produced, even
with the safety glass... I get a royal headache from working around them
more than an hour or so at a time, and I've actually sunburned my hands
under them -- so consider UV protective eyewear and sunscreen on your
hands and wrists.

Some of the units (I think most of the Son-Agro fixtures) have 
ballasts that are remote-mountable, so you can actually get the worst
of the heat producing portion of the fixture into another room.

Kay Lancaster    kay@fern.com
just west of Portland, OR; USDA zone 8
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