OH MY!

[Trillyen]

Ok today i bought a reef fanatic 250 watt metal Halide ballast for a what i thought was a steal!!! 20 bucks

At a kind of reef store garage sale.

It doesnt want to fire up my metal halide that i ALSO got from there ( 250 watt) 12000k coralvue (15 bucks)
its a electronic ballast

the bulb flickers on and off but dosent fully light up, just looks like its on fire for a second then it goes out!!!

the ballast has a wire thats just ALL wire NO COLOR on it, a red wire, and a blue wire

my wires off of my socket have a white, and black, and green wire set up.

i tried every scenerio i could, but nothing just the on off flicker of it looking like it wants to fire up but dosent

i dont think its the bulb

I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WOULD SELL A BALLAST THAT THEY KNOW DOSENT WORK

I was at work all day excited waiting to see and wondering what both sides of my tank would look like lighted up instead of just the 1, excited to go home and hook up my new WORKING ballast

I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY WOULD SELL SOMETHING KNOWING IT DOSENT WORK

i dont care if it was 5 dollars and they knew it didnt work, thats 5 dollars i could put towards the purchase of a brand new ballast, or a good working used 1.

[Bebo77]

that sucks...

[Edesign]

man...i feel your pain, i've been in similar situations (although not related to this hobby).

However, when dealing with electricity and wiring do NOT just go blindly swapping wires if that's what you implied you did, unless you have some idea of what you're doing and/or dealing with (if I'm wrong please ignore the rest of this paragraph and I apologize). Some electronics contain capacitors which store electricity (to put it simply) and can retain their charge for a time even after the power wire is disconnected (iow, they can still give you a nasty shock without power plugged in or turned on). Which is another question...if you did mess with the wiring you DID unplug everything first, right? Number one rule of rewiring electrical circuits...always unplug it first to ensure no power can get to it if at all possible. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that electricity is nothing to be played with...especially when water is involved. At best you'll get a mild shock...at worst, you'll need a toe tag. It takes less than 500 milliamps of current to cause defribilation of the heart...I don't recall the exact figure, but I'd rather highball the # than lowball it.

Anyway...about the ballast wires you mentioned. Bare wire should be the ground, the red is most likely the hot/neutral, and the blue the ground. If you're not sure what all that means do a quick search on google for basic home wiring or something like that and you'll get plenty of good explanations

The socket wires...white should be hot, green might be neutral, and I'd say black was ground.

Now, if you really want to troubleshoot a problem such as this you'd do well to invest in at least a voltmeter, preferably a multimeter so you can measure circuit resistance (and continuity, to make sure everything that is supposed to be connected together electrically is), and low current (typically 10A or less). Then read some FAQ's/tutorials on how to properly use them, it is really simple, you just have to know how which value you are trying to measure and where to set the knob to read it. That and make sure you have the meter connected correctly.

You say it flickers but does not come on...I'm a newb when it comes to aquariums but I do have a little bit of electrical background (electrical engineering degree and work as an electric power project manager/engineer) so I might be able to help you troubleshoot this IF you have the proper equipment

This flickering would seem to indicate either A) you have a bad ballast, B) you have bad wiring between the socket in the wall and the ballast connection, or C) your bulbs are bad.

Now, as I said I'm new to this hobby and I'm not familiar with the electrical characteristics of these bulbs. I do know that the ballast is basically a voltage step-up transformer (it raises the socket voltage to up around 10,000V, give or take a few thousand or more). The gas in the bulbs will not emit light until a voltage high enough is applied to the bulb, and 120 or even 240V at the socket won't be enough to do the job. So the ballast boosts the voltage to an acceptable level and the gas emits light.

But if there is a bad connection in the wiring it might not be affecting operation. You can check this by measuring resistance in the circuit with power off and as you turn on the switch on. If it reads too high you have a connection problem and need to isolate it.

The transformer might have a bad connection or might have a short in it somewhere which is not allowing it to properly function. In this case your ballast is bad and you're out $20 unless you can return it.

Also, did you make sure the bulbs didn't accidentally get swapped out for a higher voltage model? I know it's a very very slim chance but you'd be surprised at what I've seen be mislabelled or have the wrong item.

Hope you get this worked out or if you need more clarification just say so!

[Edesign]

oh yeah...I just saw electric130 stickies about MH bulbs and ballasts, you might want to read it if you haven't. Seems that not all bulbs will work with all ballasts.

[Trillyen]

WOW, thanks for the really detailed post, and yes i unplugged it before i rewired it, lol

ive wired ALL my other ballasts, and never had problems

Its either my ballast or my bulb, but im pretty sure its the ballast

thanks for the help though

the store will be getting cused out promptly on monday morning!!!!

i was really need more legal advice, cause if its possible i may sue for something if i can!!


thanks any way, and i tried the methods you siad about wiring, and the bulb aint even fire up on the connection colors you gave

thganks anyway though!!

[billsreef]

Originally posted by Trillyen
thanks any way, and i tried the methods you siad about wiring, and the bulb aint even fire up on the connection colors you gave

While he was right about the dangers of playing blindly with wiring, he was blindly guessing on the colors. Green is always ground. The other colors can vary somewhat, you really need to find the wiring chart for the ballast in order to correctly hook it up. Incorrectly hooking up a ballast can not only be dangerous, but you could end up frying the ballast. Was there any sort of paper work with the ballast or sticker on it with a drawing full of lines?

[Glove]

maybe this will shed some light

There are standards to follow when connecting wires. Its keeps people from getting shocked from things like "hot" white wires.


bare wires (copper or aluminum) are usually grounded to the housing of the component.

Green -ground
White -neutral
black - hot
Red- used in 220v connections
blue- aux. or secondary after a switch

There can be variations from this. A diagram would be very helpful.

[rsw686]

Originally posted by Edesign
Anyway...about the ballast wires you mentioned. Bare wire should be the ground, the red is most likely the hot/neutral, and the blue the ground. If you're not sure what all that means do a quick search on google for basic home wiring or something like that and you'll get plenty of good explanations

The socket wires...white should be hot, green might be neutral, and I'd say black was ground.

Don't give advice if you don't know what your talking about. I can't believe you have an electrical engineering degree. I don't mean to come off as an *** but 120v is nothing to play around with.

In household wiring green is always ground, white is neutral, and black is hot. If he wired it up like you suggest with green being neutral he would be energizing the ground line in the house. Somebody could get seriously shocked touching the case of an appliance in the house.

On the ballast wiring you state there is two grounds and the one wire is hot/neutral. Thats not possible. The bare wire is defiantly ground. The red is probably hot and the blue is probably neutral, but I would consult a manual to verify. In household wiring red is hot as well.

[xtm]

Originally posted by Edesign
The socket wires...white should be hot, green might be neutral, and I'd say black was ground.

LOL this is not automotive man, this is MAINS (ie. household power)

As mentioned above, in the United States, black is always hot, green is GND and white = neutral.

I would personally not mess with that ballast. Just take it to a pro and have him troubleshoot the problem.

Ok today i bought a reef fanatic 250 watt metal Halide ballast for a what i thought was a steal!!! 20 bucks At a kind of reef store garage sale.

then....

the store will be getting cused out promptly on monday morning!!!!

i was really need more legal advice, cause if its possible i may sue for something if i can!!

A little piece of friendly advice: It's not worth suing over $20 Instead of cussing at the store where you got a heck of a deal, go back and politely ask for a replacement or a refund...

[Trillyen]

Thanks for all the help guys, and on the ballast i tried all the different connections, ( kepping the grounds to gether the bare wire and the green)

both ways i connected them they fired but the bulb of course didnt light!!!

[Edesign]

rsw, that's why I said SHOULD and not ARE...and I referred him to google to double-check since I said I was not positive

You may not have meant to come off as an *** but you did and here's why. Having an EE degree does not mean you automatically know which color codes are used for commercial wiring (that would be information you are taught in a trade/technical school or is specified by a regulatory committee such as IEC or NEC), it means you know how the electricity and components are supposed to work together. Most EE's don't get jobs working in the commercial wiring field, and if they do their designs are dictated by NEC standards (if they're in the USA anyway). It amazes me how many people get that confused. You wouldn't believe how many people I knew who asked me if I could help them wire up their house or do some commercial electrical work when they found out I had an EE degree...actually, I bet you would because you are apparently one of them.

If you want to get down and discuss things on the component level (diodes, transistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, rectifier bridges, etc) that's generally where EE's come in. If you want someone to hook up your light switch, call an electrician...the EE can draw up the plans but that doesn't mean they know what it looks like in real life in the field (makes for some great jokes between us and the field guys)

I don't work on commercial wiring, I work with backup generators for residences up to hospitals, casinos, banks, etc...all of our cables are black for all three phases (our field techs use colored electrical tape to label each one for A, B, and C phase in the field) Once the cables are connected to the building load or whatever it's not my problem, and that is always done by the electrical contractor on the job site, not by our field techs.

And you're right, i did say two grounds on the ballast wiring but I posted that at about 4-4:30AM after a few beers...not the best time to post technical info I admit. But I'll leave it as is to show how stupid I am. I can't believe I said bare should be ground, that's the only one I was positive about lol, I swear I had that right before I started editing. I edited my post three or four times right after I submitted it trying to correct another glaring mistake and confused myself apparently (had the same problem on tests back in college).

as for 120V not being anything to play with...no voltage is anything to play with. People think voltage is what will kill you but it isn't, voltage is merely a measure of the "pressure" difference in the electrical path (if you want to put it in terms of something that's easier to visualize). The current (or electron flow...think of it as the water in a pipe or hose) is what will stop your heart, give you electrical burns, and sometimes even blow entire body parts off if high enough. One time I had a cracked distributor cap on my car, was holding my hood up with one hand, and I brushed up against that cap lol...whew! Talk about make you jump and twich a little lol, don't know how many thousands of volts exactly where being generated there but it made me take notice quick

anyway...rsw, I would have responded similarily about getting the wires wrong if I were in your shoes so don't feel bad about that. And I probably would have responded the same way if I were as ignorant (not an insult) as you as to what electrical engineers were taught in school and not realizing that "EE" does not = electrician. No skin off my back, I shouldn't have posted that early in the morning after that many beers. However, the rest of my post as to troubleshooting it is correct except there's no way thevoltmeter most people have is going to be able to measure ballast output voltage unless he gets a specialty meter to read in to the tens of kilovolts (I'm assuming it is in the tens of kV range, might just be in the thousands, as I said I'm not familiar with the requirements of those bulbs).

lol @ XTM...yeah, I realize this. Some of the offshore packages one of the other engineers works on uses green for ground. But as I said, I confused myself by hitting edit a few times really quick and trying to fix a mistake before someone read it wrong...looks like i screwed that up royally

A little piece of friendly advice: It's not worth suing over $20 Instead of cussing at the store where you got a heck of a deal, go back and politely ask for a replacement or a refund...

the most solid piece of practical advice in this entire thread! The years I worked in retail before graduating if a customer came up to me and acted like a jerk right off the bat they were far less likely to receive the help they wanted than if someone came up and politely explained their problem to me. I was far more willing to help the nice people than the jerks. Come to think of it, I still operate that way...if a contractor or someone calls me up ranting and being unpleasant, that job gets shoved way down on my priority list. That is, unless it is an emergency or a high visibility job...then I just suck it up and get them out of my hair ASAP lol.

If the clerk won't help you ask NICELY to talk to the manager...if they won't help you then go ahead and get irate because you can't usually go any higher than them so at that point you're not hurting the situation any D:

[Trillyen]

oh yes there will be cussing you can count on that

i really relied on this ballast!!

[Edesign]

you relied on something you had not tested yet?

again, cussing isn't going to get you very far...if anything, it will keep you from getting what you want (aside from making yourself look like an *** and maybe some personal satisfaction). It was a clearance sale basically, don't expect them to take it back especially if you go in there and start cussing at them (if I worked at the store you'd be SOL from the second you opened your mouth).

Do stores test everything they sell? Nope. Do manufacturer defects occur? Yep. A store can't guard against everything it sells and they don't have to exchange it in store on warranty. They can easily tell you to send it to the manufacturer for warranty, but most stores, especially large chain stores, will exchange it just to keep the customer happy.

And you should know the saying, "you get what you pay for" or "if it's too good to be true it probably is". That saying is especially true when shopping on the internet...cheap prices aren't always the best route to go (i know, you bought locally).

But good luck to you.

btw, did you read the thread I told you about? Seems not all MH bulbs are compatible with all ML ballasts, but again...I'm the newb here when it comes to this stuff so I could be wrong (again ).

[Trillyen]

Yes i read the thread you posted about the mh compatabilty

Well i guess i should of read what i bought before i bought it!!!

it says on the light box that ( bulb does not fire!) and some thing else

As i stated earlier i dont understand why i was able to buy a bulb that does not work

i mean what the [profanity] would some one want to buy a bulb that dosent work for?????

i should have read the box i guess before i bought it but should they have been selling it in the first place

I swear if i go buy another bulb just to find out that the ballast dosent work im really gonna.......well i guess thats premeditated i think they call it so never mind

WHY WOULD SOME ONE SELL SOMETHING THAT HAS NO USE AND THEM KNOWING THAT

WHY WOULD SOME ONE SELL A BULB THAT DOSENT WORK

IS THERE ANY OTHER USE FOR THIS USELESS [profanity]
MAN I SWEAR TO GOD DUDE

My ballast should still be good since it did try to fire the bulb correct????

[Edesign]

you're right...wth would they sell a bad bulb for *scratches head* Know any light bulb collectors?

the ballast should be ok though, it was obviously producing "juice". I'd take them both back to the store, ask them why they were selling a broken light bulb *and nicely ask for your money back, after all they DID label it as such so can't really fully fault them...even though it was stupid of them*, and ask them if they will plug the ballast you bought in and test one of their bulbs in it to make sure it is ok.

[Trillyen]

I MAY JUST DO THAT

depends how i feel when i wake up!!!!