question re MH pendant

[Reefdiver77]

I am having problems with my ice cap 250 pendant. No problem with ballast. The problem is inside the pendant itself with the wiring and right where the wiring enters the pendant. I heard sizzling noises, saw sparking in there and smelled an electrical smell. My husband and I took the pendant apart and the plastic wire covers (little orange plastic thingy that screws down over the wires coming into the pendant) had burned. Is there anything like a ceramic wire cover that would not melt? The ceramic bulb holders on either end seem to stand up to the heat okay. My husband stripped the wires down and replaced the wire covers and secured the ground and tried to get it as far out from the heat as he could. It is now working fine. I am watching it closely and only using it when I am home. Does any of this make sense? Does this warrent buying a new pendant?? All this is Greek to me and my husband has no intrest other than to say "You are going to keep on until you burn this damn house down!!" TIA

 

[sperry]

Solder the wires and cover the connection in heat shrink. A loose connection at the wire nuts (lil orange plastic thingy) was probably the cause. I just dont like that kind of connection for our lights because it doesnt seal the wires which leaves them exposed to the moisture.

 

[MarineFlake]

It sounds like he did the right thing, provided he used a wire nut or solder to reconnect the wires. You can twist them together and use electrical tape but you need to make sure you stretch the tape properly so it doesn't unravel over time (And NEVER use any tape except electrical tape). Anyway, re-routing the cables away from any unfinished edges if possible and/or away from heat is a really good idea. If the repair has been done correctly, there is no reason to replace it. I had almost the exact same issue with my Coralife, and since repairing, it has worked perfectly. Good to keep an eye on it for a couple weeks, maybe even recheck the repair and make sure that there is no new marring or signs of problems.

 

[just dave]

Wire nuts are fine and being a DE fixture with a lens you shouldn't have a moisture problem inside the fixture. Scott was probably correct in that there was probably a loose connection which resulted in arcing. If the environment was so hot as to cause the plastic wire nuts to become discolored ,in such a short period of time ,you should replace them with ceramic wire nuts but if that were the case the fixture should have high temperature wire ( high temp wire does not have the usual plastic looking sheathing but has sheathing that is woven and resembles cloth.) Keep in mind that while the light fixtures we use are powerful, more advanced, and more complex versus the average end-table lamp they probably have had less testing and no UL rating so don't assume that everything about them was probably done the correct way just because it costs twenty times more 'n the average desk lamp.