ODNO Lighting.

[Mettle]

Has anyone tried this?

http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/Overdriven-Normal-Output-ODNO/18/

It seems very interesting and I was thinking about DIY'ing myself something along these lines. Perhaps a three bulb ballast.

Apparently a single F32T8 bulb overdriven with a four bulb ballast per bulb is the equivalent of a 125w from other normally driven bulbs.

It seems like a good solution to expensive lighting. Also replacements aren't overly expensive from what I've read/been told.

I'm going to go and price all the bits and pieces at Home Depot I think and add it up to see if it's worth it.

Also - would a setup like this be viable for saltwater?

[DARKPHREAK]

Is it really worth it....

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/23189-fire-my-tank-exploded.html?highlight=fire+ODNO

[Mettle]

Is it really worth it....

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/lighting/23189-fire-my-tank-exploded.html?highlight=fire+ODNO

Couldn't the same be said about metal halide though? I've heard of fires breaking out because of those as well.

[valiko]

I was looking at this some time ago, and decided to go with power compacts instead.

[DARKPHREAK]

MH use ceramic sockets, kinda hard to start a fire there. T12 and lower use plastic sockets. Plastic is designed to run a certain wattage through them, say 40 watts or lower and not what you'd run through them with ODNO.

[Mettle]

Hmm. That's true Darkphreak... Maybe I will just go the route of a retrofit cf kit and perhaps wait about for a good deal on some cf lighting to come up. (Which has been happening a lot lately - though I don't have the money right now! Argh!)

[BigDaddy]

Overdriving a single bulb on a dual ballast will NOT provide the same light as two bulbs would.  And you are definately not going to get the equivalent of 120 watts of light out of a single normal output fluorescent, regardless of how you wire it.

ODNO has points of diminishing returns.  Additionally, certain bulbs drive better than others because of the manufacturing processes involved.

F32T8 bulbs are rated for tens of thousands of hours (making them good market-able bulbs for commercial outlets) because they are designed to run hotter and brighter than what they get installed in.  So they take well to being overdriven.  Other bulbs (2 footers, etc...), not so much