Time it takes for MH to fire up?

[denkigroove]

I have a remote ballast. Don't know the make and model (possibly a Hamilton). It's just a black metal casing with a switch on it. I'm using it on my pendant setup + a 10k bulb. My question is, how long does it usually take for a remote ballast to fire up?

Mine flickers and hums about 3-4 times over 15minutes before it completely fires up. Is this normal?

[Skipper]

In my experience with the two that I have, I would say no...it does not appear normal. When the timer turns mine on, they make a noise which disappears within the minute. I am not sure what would be causing yours to do that, unless it has to do with the nipple inside the bulb. Let's see what a few other folks say about theirs.

[TheJ]

I just set up my PFO HQI 150w yesterday so I'm new to MH, but this morning it only took about half a second to fire up. The bulb started glowing immediately, but I'd say it took about 45 seconds for it to start burning with intensity. No flicker whatsoever.

[mirski57]

Mine take at least a full minute to fire up. I have a remote Hamilton Ballast with 2 x 175wat 10K MH's. It's been like this for a year now; never any different. First there's this rough chafing/gurrgling sound for about 2-3 seconds right in the beginning inside the ballast, then they begin to "warm up"

[texasreefer]

Mine makes a noise when the timer turns on in the morning, but it only takes a minute or two to completely fire up. The noise of the ballast firing up in the morning is like a alarm clock for me. :)

[Avi]

a few seconds of humming, and then the bulb is lit.

[denkigroove]

Well the ballast hums at first then the bulb flickers a couple of times. Then begins to glow but then shuts off. About 3-5mins later, it hums again and flickers. Does this a couple more times. After about 15 mins the bulb finally glows and remains on. Is there something I'm doing wrong? (connections, bulb is bad, etc. )Could the ballast be screwed up? I just bought it used a week now but that was my first time witnessing the light turn on b/c I'm always at school til nightime.

[dhodorow]

I'm running a 10k bulb on a Blueline electronic ballast. It only takes about 1 minute for it to fire the bulb and completely light up. It starts within about 10 second, glows dimly, and after about another 50 seconds it is burning bright. If I have a power outage however, it seems to take approx 15 minutes to reset and fire back up.

Dave

[denkigroove]

Yea thats what I figured when it would shut off after the first glow. Don't MH bulbs take a while to fire up again? But the weird thing is, it does this every 3-5 mins. I don't think this flickering is good for the bulb. Well its not an electronic ballast, one of those tar ballasts I think. It stops humming right after it fires up though and runs quiet.

I wonder if this is a sign of a bad ballast? Anyone experienced problems similar to this?

Oh and I'm planning to get a 175w MH Icecap electronic ballast in place of this one. But I want to use the old remote ballast for another tank later. Is it possible to convert my pendant to run with the Icecap? Do I have to buy other parts?

[cacplkings]

ITs not necesarily the ballast but the cap that is tied to it inside. There are 2 parts in there. The large coil of wire and a smaller normally silver coil. the smaller silver coil is like a 'starter' to kick over the big wire coil. I would suspect it is not putting out enough to kick the large coil into action. The 'repeat' of the cycle is just the MH bulb trying to fire, getting warm, and shutting itself back off till cooling.

Chris

[Snailman]

Not all ballast will fire all lamps. Like Chris, I think that your ballast for whatever reason is having trouble igniting the lamp. We have three Icecap 175 MH ballast and have used Hamilton, AB and Blueline and all have worked fine. We tried some of the 12,000K Sunburst lamps and the ballast would not start them the first time and it would take up to four tries to start one. On an IceCap this means powering the ballast off and back on because they only fire once. We ran the lamps manual for a month and then removed them for some more 10,000K lamps so that we did not have to be homne to start them if they failed to ingite. If you can get a different lamp from someone it is worth a try. I use a $28 4000K lamp from Lowes for a test lamp. :)

[Technobuyer]

FWIW, on my prop tank I use advance 175W ballasts. I use Ushio 10K's, but in the past have tried to use the Hamilton bulbs(thought they are reported to be made by BLV same as Ushio, my experience with the two brands has bee night and day). More than once I have experienced a problem such as you describe. You might try using a different brand of bulb.

[denkigroove]

Originally posted by Snailman
We tried some of the 12,000K Sunburst lamps and the ballast would not start them the first time and it would take up to four tries to start one.

Snailman,
That's exactly the symtoms I'm having. But it is with a Hamilton 10k bulb. Perhaps it has the same problems as the Sunburst bulbs. Well I'm going to buy a new bulb soon and hopefully it does not have the same problems as this one.

thanks for all the help guys.

[PaulErik]

It sounds like the lamp isn’t compatible with that ballast. Go to this link http://members.fortunecity.com/paulerik/id48.htm
and tell me witch one of the inner lamp drawings looks like the one you have (probe or pulse).