HID Ballast and Buld

Not sure if this is the right forum or not. but since i am talking about Metal halid which is HID i assume it is.

Anyway, i want to build(assembling) metal halide lamp. What i mean is what parts do i need? ballast, bulb etc and what kind of ballast are there on the market? i heard of pulse start ballast and so on. How do metal halide bulb and ballast is usually wired(any schematic?) are they similar to fluorescent except for the capacitor? I am interested because i never build a MH setup before. Should be interesting. I am aware of the danger of working with high voltage and high preassure bulb.

thanks

I've never built one so this is general info only. Some people used automotive HID headlight bulbs and ballasts and modded their (hugh) Thor 10mcp lights with excellant results. On a smaller scale people here modded their maglights with the Welch Allyn ballast and bulbs. They are a much smaller round unit running at 10 watts. The wiring for the above units is fairly straight forward as the associated wiring harness has the correct plugs. On a practical note there will soon be an Amondotech Illuminater light for sale for around $129.00 which will contain a 35 watt ballast and bulb and for that price it may be cheaper just to buy the whole preassembled light! Maybe other members can chime in with more technical details if you need them.

anybody?