Jinxer

When checking the strength and or life of the bulbs, do I take my reading after bed has been on for 5 mins? Or soon as bed comes on? And Can someone tell me what there uv meter reading is for your base beds. I am in Ohio a regulated state, and seems the highest rating I get on new bulbs is around 20-21. And after 300 hours they rate at approx 17. That is 20% drop. People are complaining that they arent getting anything. So is my starting 20 reading already to low?? Please some advice in this area.

engfant

Ok CALM DOWN and forget about all that nonsense. Regulated Smegulated. That makes no difference. Even if my state wasn't regualted I'd still be using the same lamps in all my equipment.

Here's what you need to do for metering(and everyone else)

When metering a bed, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER is to do it EXACTLY the same way everytime or it'll be a different reading everytime. What I do is I'll tan in the morning and then rerun the bed after I'm done, wait 3 minutes for the thing to be as stable as possible and then find the spot where the meter reads the highest, and kinda keep an eye on that area for future meterings.

TEMPERATURE MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE. Metering in the cold is WAY DIFFERENT than a warm metering. Running the bed once then metering on the second run is a good way to get it to a similar temp everytime.

As for strength of the lamps, it really depends on the bed, lamp, temperature etc. Those numbers are pretty good for a 20min bed but it depends.

navigatin1

The Donkey knows!!!! Creepy little jackarse, but he knows his s**t!

(P.S Donkey thanks again for the advice on those TT's for my Sunvitale, you where right on the money with the uvb being way to low with the 9k90's!)