You get what you pay for. Shop lights.

dcarch · February 21, 2007

Wal-Mart shop lights

There are many of you who have purchased Wal-Mart shop lights for grow lights. They are incredibly inexpensive. However, please note the following:

1. They are not very well made. All components are snap-together type of construction and can be easily broken or become loose during transit and installation.
2. One of mine started a fire because the bulb was not making good contact with the socket and the arc melted the plastic housing.
3. The ballast is not housed in metal casing at all. I am not sure I feel comfortable about having high voltage in a flimsy plastic housing.
4. Looking at the circuit board, the electronic power components are not heat-sinked. I don’t know what temperature they are running at.
5. Although the spec says the fixture meets FCC requirements, but in examining the circuit board, I didn’t see any effort in radio frequency shielding /grounding. Not having the ballast in a metal casing also will allow RF to escape. If some of you have access to a RF field strength meter to check this out would be nice. Be careful if you have any electronic devices (pace maker) which may be sensitive to RF interference.

dcarch

February 21, 2007	#1
dcarch Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: NY Posts: 2,618	You get what you pay for. Shop lights. Wal-Mart shop lights There are many of you who have purchased Wal-Mart shop lights for grow lights. They are incredibly inexpensive. However, please note the following: 1. They are not very well made. All components are snap-together type of construction and can be easily broken or become loose during transit and installation. 2. One of mine started a fire because the bulb was not making good contact with the socket and the arc melted the plastic housing. 3. The ballast is not housed in metal casing at all. I am not sure I feel comfortable about having high voltage in a flimsy plastic housing. 4. Looking at the circuit board, the electronic power components are not heat-sinked. I don’t know what temperature they are running at. 5. Although the spec says the fixture meets FCC requirements, but in examining the circuit board, I didn’t see any effort in radio frequency shielding /grounding. Not having the ballast in a metal casing also will allow RF to escape. If some of you have access to a RF field strength meter to check this out would be nice. Be careful if you have any electronic devices (pace maker) which may be sensitive to RF interference. dcarch __________________ tomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomato matomato tomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomato matomato tomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomatomato matomato