Radium Bulbs and Ballasts??
- Thread starter HOC
- Start date
Obviously you want to isolate it to the ballast before sending the ballast in for repair. And again, it may not be the ballast.
Im not saying that they arent good components in the ballasts any more. Just that they arent using the Advance Transformer components any longer and that those have a long lived reputation as the best or among the best. I know nothing about the Chinese components they are using now. I havent read of any complaints from users of the newer Bluewave ballasts so like I said im just jumping the gun on mentioning the ballast. It may not be the ballast at all.
I dont know what to tell you if you end up having to send the ballast in for service. But if it's not firing the lamp now, you have no light anyway ... If its the lamp itself and it is the only halide bulb you have, you wont have any light either until you exchange the bulb for a good one.
If you do have to send either the bulb or ballast back, throw on an old fixture of any kind if you have one. Or, if it is the ballast, maybe the dealer will take it back for exchange instead of having to go through SS for repair? That may be a faster turnaround.
Sometimes the lamp can bind up a bit when screwing it into the socket and it may seem like it's screwed in all the way when it really isnt. Sound like thats what happened and it wasnt making good contact with that tab.
If it keeps working then you know for sure that was the issue.
Glad it was a simple fix.
stevedola
Master of my domain
I just dont know what to do with my situation. Not sure if you remember but my 250w radium SE bulb would only fire on when you wiggle the bulb in the socket. Ive replaced the socket with no resolve. Ive replaced the bulb but it seems to be having the same issues. The first 3 days of the new bulb it fired on perfectly fine with my RK2 turning it on. However the last 2 days the bulb needed me to take it down, unscrew it, and wiggle the bulb. Have you ever hear of such a thing? I dont know what it could be. THe ballast fired on the test bulb I used and fires the radium when I wiggle it. THe socket is brand new. The bulb is brand new. Could the wiring on the Lumenbright be stoping the bulb from firing? Do you know someone that might have answers for me?
is there a certain way to wire the ballast to the refector socket? I always thought that wirenuts and elec tape would be acceptable. It just seems so fishy that it fires the bulb with a wiggle, like its ready to go but just cant turn over. frustrating isnt the word.
is there a certain way to wire the ballast to the refector socket? I always thought that wirenuts and elec tape would be acceptable. It just seems so fishy that it fires the bulb with a wiggle, like its ready to go but just cant turn over. frustrating isnt the word.
Black and white (hot and neutral) goes to socket, ground to the ground point on the reflector/pendant. Wire nuts are fine as long as installed correctly. I use high temp wire nuts.
If you replaced the lamp and the socket then I would assume that the issue is in the ballast, probably the ignitor, possibly the cap but the cap in that particular ballast circuit is mainly for PF correction.
But this is based on what my conclusions would be if I were troubleshooting it myself. Then again, I have several ballasts on hand that I could use to double check if it is indeed a bad ballast or ballast component.
If you decide to contact sunlight supply again ... regarding the lamp, let them know that the Radium lamp you are using is specd for the M80 ballast so they have no excuses telling you that the lamp you are using is not compatible.
stevedola
Master of my domain
"ground to the ground pt" ?
what do you mean by this? the ground coming from the ballast is wired together with the ground coming from the socket. Am I supposed to connect them together and then ground to the pendant?
if it were the ballast then why would the bulb fire when wiggled?
what do you mean by this? the ground coming from the ballast is wired together with the ground coming from the socket. Am I supposed to connect them together and then ground to the pendant?
if it were the ballast then why would the bulb fire when wiggled?
There is usually a ground screw located on the pendant somewhere. Thats where the green ground wire in the wiring from the ballast to pendant would attach. The mogul socket should have a black (hot) wire and a white (neutral) wire. Then there is usually a screw on the pendant where the green, ground wire would attach but that can depend on the pendant. I dont know what the Lumebright pendants are like so I cant speak for every pendant out there. But the Sunlight supply pendants (lumenmax, reef optix) have a cable connected to them that plug directly into sunlight supply ballasts with a proprietary plug. The pendants are wired with the green ground wire from the ballast to pendant wiring connected to a ground screw that attaches to the metal housing of the pendant itself. The ground wire is NOT wired to the socket itself and it is NOT a shared connection with the neutral wire at the socket.
I am not clear on how you have wired your system. It sounds like you have wired the green ground and the white neutral wires together with the white neutral wire from the socket ???
Or are you saying that the socket itself has 3 seperate wires to connect to, black, white and green ???
stevedola
Master of my domain
i found it here in this thread
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=15323931#post15323931
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=15323931#post15323931
pontiac2002gtp
New member
I'm running a radium 250 on a lumatek ballast with a lumenbright mini pendant and love it its been up for six months and has been flawless the color looks great and growth is good I think its closer to most 14k bulbs than a 20k but I really like the color.
Its not a cause of "strain" on the ballast but rather a drop in voltage or current due to higher resistances of longer wire lengths. It certainly wont hurt to try shortening the wire length.
I never had an issue firing the Radium or any other lamp with the full length cord that comes with the Blue Wave ballast.
But it is possible that the bulb is just getting below the needed amount of juice to start the lamp and shortening the cord could be the difference. Wiggling the lamp most likely improves the contact enough to make the difference and fire the lamp. If there were a problem with the ballast/ignitor in that it was, for whatever reason, providing just borderline starting voltage to fire the lamp, wiggling the lamp may also improve contact so there was less loss of starting voltage. So it still could be a ballast issue. Could be as simple as a loose wire or poor contact in a switch to a problem with the ignitor ... or something else.
If the socket has a dedicated ground then your wiring sounds fine. The pendant itself is probably grounded by way of how the socket mounts to it.
FYI, Radiums arn't spec'ed for m80 either. They're euro-spec'ed, so their optimum voltage is between m80 and standard 250w spec. There is a discussion about it in ReefKeeping mag when they talked about the basics and standards of MH lighting systems.
That being said, I run 2x250w Radiums on one new style Icecap ballast and one older Coralvue e-ballast. I love the color, and they're just blue enough yet also my corals are growing well with them, and the corals are coloring up a lot from the increase in blue spectrum. The coloring is either the bluer end of the spectrum of the radiums, or a combination of that with the decreased output of the bulb compared to when I ran 10ks, which made a lot of my corals lighten up to light tan coloration. I don't use actinic anymore because you can't see it at all when the radiums are fired up.
That being said, I run 2x250w Radiums on one new style Icecap ballast and one older Coralvue e-ballast. I love the color, and they're just blue enough yet also my corals are growing well with them, and the corals are coloring up a lot from the increase in blue spectrum. The coloring is either the bluer end of the spectrum of the radiums, or a combination of that with the decreased output of the bulb compared to when I ran 10ks, which made a lot of my corals lighten up to light tan coloration. I don't use actinic anymore because you can't see it at all when the radiums are fired up.
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