Calling Electricians -- MH Ballast Switch Problem

[uclacsnerd]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for some help wiring an IceCap 175W MH Ballast (before they were sold in the enclosures).

I have flush mounted a digital timed switch like this into my ballast enclosure:

http://www.intermatic.com/Default.as...cid=43&sid=112

I have a single 12awg grounded power cord coming into the enclosure and I am trying to wire the ballast so that the switch can control the ballast on/off cycle.



This has been a very clean solution for me in the past with PC ballasts that avoids big timers and messy wiring. But its not working here.


Problem:

1. The lights come on the first press or timed on of the switch.
2. Shut off at the correct time.
3. They never come back on in the morning. Manual override does not work either.
4. Unplugging and plugging the box back in does allow the lights to come back up and cycle starts over.

Any ideas? These are my other ideas. Before I run off and try them, does anyone see any obvious issues?

1. Try with a standard (nontimed) wall switch just to eliminate switch issues.
2. Try plugging the ballast into a switched wall outlet and use the digital timer on that outlet - if this works, I would assume my approach is feasable and I have a wiring issue.

Thanks!

[cannarella]

That is just weird. I didn't understand, did you try with a normal light switch yet or you are going to try? How old is the lamp?

[uclacsnerd]

I have not tried with a normal wall switch. Will be doing that tonight.

Lamps are pretty old - but they work fine otherwise. I have replacements in the mail for other reasons. I'm not optimistic that will fix this.

I'm not familiar with how wall switches differ from a normal switch meant for wiring inline with a device. The wall switch directions do say to wire the home's black wire to one end and white wire to the other. That doesn't work in my case because I need to loop the ballast in somewhere.

I've posted a wiring diagram here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/collin.davis/UntitledAlbum

I'm certain I'm doing something wrong.

[cannarella]

You are just using the black and blue wires on the timer? I would suggest using the Black on the Line side and Blue on the load side. The manual for the switch says it can be done in either way though. I suspect the problem is with the timer. I bet when you use the manual switch tonight it will work just fine. I would base the results on hearing the ballast hum and not fire the lamp when powered up.

[uclacsnerd]

I'm sure what you mean here:

"You are just using the black and blue wires on the timer? I would suggest using the Black on the Line side and Blue on the load side."

There are only 2 leads on the timer, a black one and a blue one. I actually tried running the the black power to the blue lead and the black ballast line to the black lead. Same results.

Is this what you meant?

[cannarella]

In the instructions they showed a red. I guess yours does not have that. Sorry for the confusion.

[uclacsnerd]

I stand corrected:

There is a red wire. However the instructions mention this is only for 3-way switches, so I mentally discarded it.

How would you suggest using it?

[cannarella]

No don't use it. Let's see what the manual switch does and report back with your findings.

[uclacsnerd]

I talked with some guys at work and I think we have it figured out:

The timer doesnt use the white (neutral) house wire. Aka it's called a "no neutral required" switch. But it needs some power of its own in order stay awake and maintain time. The only way it could be getting this power without the white wire is if it's bleeding a tiny amount of power all the time to complete a circuit.

The IceCap ballast has some smart fail-safe circuitry in it and that tiny amount of extra power is probably triggering this. This explains why unplugging it fixes it. This would also explain why this wiring worked on my WorkHorse PC ballasts which probably don't have the same IceCap "smarts"

This switch would likely work: http://www.smarthome.com/1122a.html, but it's not cheap.

I'll report back I'm able to confirm this hypothesis.

[cannarella]

Doesn't the switch have batteries in it like the instructions say?

[uclacsnerd]

It does indeed have batteries. I think it must only use them when the power is out.

I have confirmed tonight that the ballast & wiring model works fine with a simple boring wall switch.

I was trying to think of sneaky ways to use the 3-way mode on the switch. Something like connecting it to another device so that it would always be "on" and hopefully not need to bleed - but I don't have anything that will work. Ideas?

I'll be heading to Home Depot tomorrow to see if I can't find a timer that uses the neutral for its own power circuit. I'll also be picking up multimeter

[cannarella]

It should stay awake using the batteries. Multimeter will tell you if it is bleeding an power.