Lighting jargon

[SaM dA MaN]

Ok, quite the lame post indeed but I'm just a little confused.
Could someone explain what all these lighting terms actually mean.

1) retrofit

2) ballast

3) pvc

4) 50/50 lighting

5) actnic blue

thanks people

[Guttboy]

Sam here is my best attempt at decoding those words....

Retrofit.....means to replace the lighting that was originally in the fixture. This is a common way to replace standard flourescent bulbs with PC ones. You can also do it with incandescent although i think that might be less common.

Ballast.....A ballast is a piece of equipment that enables a flourescent light to work. Im no scientist here but in order for the gasses in the flourescent light to work they have to be excited by energy. Typically they flicker on and off very very fast...the ballast does this. Electronic ballasts are supposed to do this more efficently.

PVC......Ok PVC is Polyvinyl Chloride if I am not mistaken. It is a hard plastic that is commonly used to make pipes in houses and plumbing applications.

50/50 lighting......really not sure on this one...perhaps 50% bluish (actinic) and 50% reddish light in the spectrum?

Actinic blue.....type of light that emmits very blue hues to the naked eye...very common in reef tanks.

Hope that helps you out!

Mike

[DLeDeaux]

Originally Posted by Guttboy

50/50 lighting......really not sure on this one...perhaps 50% bluish (actinic) and 50% reddish light in the spectrum?

I think 50/50 refers to the bulb or bulb setup. You're right in the one 50% refers to the actinic bulb, but I believe the other 50% refers to a 10k bulb. There are some bulbs that are actually half actinic and half 10k.

This is typically used in a salt water aquarium as well.