Northstar reflector. Tutorial video

Transcrip of video tutorial on the Northstar Reflector :

I’m going to tell you how to install one of the most professional reflectors that we have in www.alchimiaweb.com, the Northstar.

We’ve taken the reflector out of the box, it comes with this adaptor to attach to the extraction duct, and the male Plug & Play cable. We’re going to connect this reflector to a ballast to work with a bulb, in this case a HPS.

Let’s see how to connect it. Turn the reflector around and we can see it has the black connection box here on this side. It’s very simple, take a cross-head screwdriver and let’s get on with it. We’re going to remove the four screws, that will allow access to the reflector’s connection terminals…

We take the lid off and reveal the terminal strip for the electric cables, which we’ll use to connect the ballast. First of all, we take the male Plug & Play cable by the stripped end and insert it in this hole.

First of all, we’re going to unscrew this piece, to allow the cable through. It’s a small hole, simply introduce the cables inside, so they pass freely, and now we insert it in the connection box through one of the two holes in the side of the box.

Simply, we tighten it up firmly, and now all that’s left is to connect the 3 cables that lead from the Plug & Play cable to the terminal strip. First, the black cable to the brown one, which is Live. In the centre, we’ll connect the Earth and on the left the Neutral. Let’s go…

You’ll have seen that the reflector has a hole, and an connector like this. What’s it for? As you know, the bulb is the place in the grow room where temperatures are the highest, making extraction necessary. In this case, this adaptor will allow us to extract air directly from the reflector.

We simply fit the connector to the top of the reflector, take an Alu-type extraction duct like this one, in this case it’s 125mm, and the extraction works through this duct, as easy as that. In this way we can extract the hot air from the bulb directly and extract it to outside of the grow tent.

Now we’ve got the Northstar reflector perfectly wired up, with it’s male Plug & Play, and we’ve got the ballast with it’s female Plug & Play. Simply connect the two, and we’ve got the circuit complete.

The next step. Take the bulb. In this case, it’s a High Pressure Sodium bulb, we remove it from it’s packaging, and hold it using paper to avoid damaging the glass, and we screw it into the reflector. When it’s screwed in firmly, but not so much that it breaks, we’ll have it ready and prepared to turn the reflector on.

Simply connect the ballast to the mains supply, and wait the few seconds it takes to warm up and for the bulb to light up.

Now you’ve seen, it’s that easy to wire up the Northstar reflector…