Ballast wattage and bulb wattage

[ainsle11]

I am using a 400 watt bulb with a 1000 watt mh ballast. I have been trying to find an answer to my question and i have been getting different answers, the question i have is, does a 1000 watt ballast put out 1000 watt automatically or does the 400 watt bulb just draw 400 watts from it, what it needs?
thanks

 

[ainsle11]

does anyone know anything on this subject

 

[209 Cali C.G]

I am using a 400 watt bulb with a 1000 watt mh ballast. I have been trying to find an answer to my question and i have been getting different answers, the question i have is, does a 1000 watt ballast put out 1000 watt automatically or does the 400 watt bulb just draw 400 watts from it, what it needs?
thanks

yes is does.

Should you do it NO, but some people do it?

Would I do it, no.There's reason why that they make 400, 600, 1000 watt Ballast for a reason.

 

[OG13]

Are you sure? If there is no bulb, does the ballast still consume 1000 watts--I don't think so? How can you run two 400 watt bulbs on a 1000 watt ballast? The ballast is sized to run up to 1000 watts of bulb(s). You could run up to 4x250 watts assuming the ignitor would fire them off. The only way to know for sure is to put a "kill a watt" meter on the power cord and check, probably using about 475 watts to run the 400 watt bulb.

 

[209 Cali C.G]

YEAH YOUR RIGHT,miss read