Basic ProReflector. Tutorial video

In this Alchimiavideo we explain how to install a Basic Pro Reflector, how to wire this type of reflector with energy saving bulbs and with HPS or Metal Halide bulbs, for indoor home-growing.

More information at: Basic Pro Reflector

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Transcript of video tutorial on the Basic ProReflector :

Today I’m going to show you how to fit a Basic Pro Reflector with 2 types of bulbs, the energy saving bulb, and the HPS or Metal Halide bulb, each with the corresponding ballast.

The first thing we’ll do is to remove the plastic protector. We’ve got it ready, now I’m going to tell you how to wire the reflector to work with two different technologies. With the energy saving bulb, we’re going to use a regular supply cable, with it’s male plug and three normal terminals, and then we’re going to work with a ballast to go with HPS or Metal Halide bulbs, with this we’ll use a Plug & Play-type male cable, also with the same three terminals…

As you can see, the type of wiring is going to be exactly the same. I’m going to tell you how to wire one, and it’s exactly the same with the other… okay? Let’s get to it. We’ll turn it around, first of all, the reflector. In this case we need a cross-head screwdriver and we can start to unscrew the back of the bulb holder.

In this case there are 4 bolts on the top and one on the side, allowing us to access the wiring inside the bulb holder. When I refer to the bulb holder, I’m talking about this part where the bulb screws in. Careful with the parts, we don’t want to lose anything. There’s a washer, a bolt and a nut.

We’ve got the top part undone, now we turn it around and there’s just this bolt left here in the middle to give accessto the wiring terminals…

We take this part off, turn the bulb holder around, and we can see the cables where we’re going to connect a strip like this one, an electrical terminal strip. We put the cable in the strip and tighten it firmly, making sure the cable won’t come out due to movement, heat or any other reason.

One in one terminal, another in the other terminal. In this case we’ll use the 1st and 3rd. We tighten this… and what we’re going to do is insert the electric cable in these terminals. But we need to remember (don’t forget this), that first we need to pass the cable through the hole that’s in the reflector for this reason.

We’ll pass the cable through, and as we’ve got enough, it reaches to the terminal strip to screw it in. We’ll fit the brown, which is the Live, on one side, in this case it’s also with brown, and tighten. In the centre we’ll put the Earth, which in this case won’t do anything as the bulb holder doesn’t have an Earth terminal… and the blue cable on the other side, that goes with white in this case.

It doesn't really matter much if the blue goes with the white or the brown, because we’re working with a 220v alternating current. This means that there’s no polarity and it works the same on one side as the other. Perfect, now we’ve got the cables in the terminal strip, all we’ve got to do is reinstall the bulb holder on the reflector.

Now we’ve got the cable connected and the bulb holder in it’s proper place, all we need to do is take the energy saving bulb and screw it into the bulb holder. Remember that we’re working with a direct supply cable… the direct cable only with energy saving bulbs, never with HPS or Metal Halide.

Very good, let’s test and see if it works. Perfect, it works. Now we’ll do the same, disconnect the direct cable and fit a Plug & Play cable, which will enable us to connect directly to the ballast.

We’ve removed the 220v supply cable, which we used for the energy saving bulb, and we’ve inserted the Plug & Play cable. The male Plug & Play which is what all ballasts tend to have. As simple as this, we’ve connected the ballast to the reflector, it’s ready now to work with a bulb like this one, in the case, a sodium bulb.

Hold it using a paper towel, so as not to touch the glass with our hands, which as you know, can damage it. Screw the bulb in and now we can connect the ballast directly to the mains supply. Electronic ballasts take a few seconds to warm up. Now it’s going to start working, but in this video we’ve now seen how to wire a reflector Basic Pro like this directly with an energy saving bulb or an electronic ballast.

I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time!

(+34) 972 527 248
(+34) 972 527 248
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