whatcaneyedo
Member
This morning I noticed that one of my MH bulbs would not fire up. Its a 14000K 250W DE Hamilton bulb running in a Hamilton reefstar pendant with the Hamilton HQI ballast that came with the pendant.
With the light turned on I could see what looks like a lighting bolt inside the inner capsule but it wasn’t igniting the bulb. I tried turning the light off and on again a couple of times but it didn’t work. I then removed the bulb for a closer inspection and saw that the outer capsule had about 1/8 of a teaspoon of ash inside. I guess the bulb is toast now but I still don’t understand why. I had been running the bulb for 10 hours a day since June so it was only about 9 months old.
In fact I've been running two since then and the other one which is in an Aquamedic fixture is doing fine. The last Hamilton bulb I ran for a whole 13 months in the Hamilton fixture and it can still fire up fine. I guess it must have been a bad bulb in some way. Has anyone else encountered this problem?
For now I’ve switched back to a 20000K Giesemann and it is fired up no problem.
With the light turned on I could see what looks like a lighting bolt inside the inner capsule but it wasn’t igniting the bulb. I tried turning the light off and on again a couple of times but it didn’t work. I then removed the bulb for a closer inspection and saw that the outer capsule had about 1/8 of a teaspoon of ash inside. I guess the bulb is toast now but I still don’t understand why. I had been running the bulb for 10 hours a day since June so it was only about 9 months old.
In fact I've been running two since then and the other one which is in an Aquamedic fixture is doing fine. The last Hamilton bulb I ran for a whole 13 months in the Hamilton fixture and it can still fire up fine. I guess it must have been a bad bulb in some way. Has anyone else encountered this problem?
For now I’ve switched back to a 20000K Giesemann and it is fired up no problem.
