Burnt smell

[dmbedard]

Does a ballast smell like burning electric when it is "burnt up"?

Does anyone have experience with this? It smells like the ARC ballast for the VHO lights is burnt up.

Thanks in advance for any help available.

Diane

[reefrubble]

Is the smell coming from where the ballast is located? If you can get to that area easily sniff around the ballast,that should give you the answer. The first thing I would do,would be unplug the ballast,just in case that is the problem. Good luck Diane. Ted

[dmbedard]

It is the ballast to my VHO Actinics. Actually melted the wire connectors. Took off the ballast. Then we unplugged the other ballast because it still smells a little.

Now we are plugging things in one at a time to see if we need any more equipment. What next???

Thanks for responding Ted. I hope you and Linda had a nice Thanksgiving.

[robthorn]

my buddies ice cap just did the same thing 2 days ago. not a nice unexpected expense. ice cap has a 3 year warranty not sure how long yours is.

[dmbedard]

We ended up being able to fix both ballasts. There was some type of melting of the plug that connects the lights to the ballast. We just cut off the plug at both ends, went to Radio Shack and bought a new one and rewired it.

The other one (magnetic) Ted managed to figure out. The switch had burned out and caused one of the ballasts to overheat. He changed out the switch and bada bing!

Thank God for friends who are reefers and will help others.

Diane