Halide not working

[Spartanman22]

I have a T5 halide combo fixture I built with a 250 watt DE Phoenix bulb driven by a 250 watt lumantek electronic ballast. The fixture is run through my RKE and is set to come on at 1:00, but lately it will start powering up the bulb right at 1:00 and usually once the bulb has reached max intensity it turns off and won't come on for the rest of the day. Any idea why this is happening?

 

[sirreal63]

To troubleshoot, plug the fixture directly into a wall outlet, not through the RKE, if it continues to run you know the RKE is the issue, if it does not continue to run, that leaves ballast or bulb.

 

[AcroporAddict]

Also, make sure your ballast is plugged into either outlet 1 or 4 on your PC4 power strip. These are the high amperage outlets in the PC4. Outlets 2 and 3 only have about half the amperage capacity of 1 and 4.

 

[Spartanman22]

I just tried those suggestions and it doesn't work through the wall. The bulb is less than a month old so I'm assuming ballast? The light would start up then shut off once at peak intensity. At peak intensity it should be drawing the most power right? Maybe the ballast is just shorting? I have a spare I can swap out I'll see if that fixes it

 

[sirreal63]

It will draw the most when firing the bulb. I would suspect the bulb before the ballast, but either is possible.

 

[Spartanman22]

Ok thanks I have an old spare I'll try swapping out

 

[AcroporAddict]

If your ballast is bad, you may be able to get warranty replacement. IIRC, Lumateks have a 5 year warranty.

 

[Spartanman22]

I was not aware they had that long of a warranty mine are roughly 4 years old so I'm getting close. I tried different bulbs so not the bulb.

 

[Spartanman22]

I was not aware they had that long of a warranty mine are roughly 4 years old so I'm getting close. I tried different bulbs so not the bulb.