HELP Lights keep on dying!

[nepenthes99]

I have had my Odyssea fixture (recommended by a RC member) since late September and it has functioned decently until about 2 weeks ago, when the last of the cheap fluorescent T5's went out. The next day I purchased 4 ZooMed T5's from Petco to replace them. Earlier today I found all but one of the lights working, which is how the last set died as well. I troubleshooted with no avail. The bulbs were fully dead. I am wondering if it is the lights or the fixture that is causing the problem. The Odyssea lights are as Chinese as you can get and could be sending irregular current to the lights or something else that would kill them all immediately. I would like to not lose anymore lights/money/livestock so suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

nepenthes99

 

[MSreefdoc]

If you have had other lights plugged into this outlet for a long time with no problems and you are not having light bulbs blow elsewhere in your home(which could indicate your home could be getting a little more voltage to it than needed, I had this problem once) than i'd say it's probably the Chinese fixture!

 

[Rustafar]

Ballast, ballast, ballast. My Odyssea 48" 4x54w ballasts did that, I just replaced the two ballasts on my Odyssea 4 x 54 watt fixture with a couple of Sylvania Ballasts. Now the light are brighter and the fixture itself runs a bit cooler. I got mine off of ebay (2) 2 x 54w for 29.99 + 10.00 for ship. Haven't had a problem since. Hope that helps.

 

[Khemul]

It wouldn't surprise me. It's one of those mysteries about Odyssea. It isn't that they are cheap Chinese junk. It is that, for some mysterious reason, they are intent on wiring their fixtures in ways that case them to burn out bulbs. Granted, they usually do it with the LED moonlights, rather then the primary bulbs of the T5 fixtures. But it isn't a big shock really. If they'd just wire the fixtures better they'd probably be the best and most recommended sellers in the industry, because just about all the complaints on quality about them come down to bad wiring.

 

[Rustafar]

when I open my light the wiring looked pretty good,but the way the ballasts are setup are different than any other ballast wiring. so I had to trial and error it til I got them to fire.
Plus I had to pigtail a lot of main power wires, also I had to figure out the built in timer wires. took a couple of hours to complete the whole thing. I also slit some air line tubing and added it to the edges of the reflector so the wiring wouldn't get cut.
Now all is good.