Inconsistent MH bulb firing....

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bigdog1002

Well-Known Member
I have a 400W Galaxy ballast. I'm using a Hortilux Blue (not the Super Blue) MH lamp. Of course I have my system on a timer. The problem is that sometimes the bulb doesn't light in the morning. The first time I had to unplug and replug the ballast then the light came on. This morning, nothing. I have a Hortilux Super HPS that I plug in and it fires EVERY SINGLE TIME when the timer goes on. As a side note, I had another identical MH bulb that did the same thing before eventually burning out in 2 weeks. Do these ballasts just not like those particular bulbs (or vice versa)? I wanted to use MH in veg but I don't wanna be worried if my lights are actually gonna come on or not. I've switched to the Super HPS for now since I know it's gonna fire every morning and it has enhanced blue/violet spectrum so that helps some. But I'm really curious why the MH bulb is so finnicky
 
Spanishfly

Spanishfly

Well-Known Member
A contactor is basically a relay - MH and HPS bulbs with ballast are a large INDUCTIVE load. They can produce large current spikes at switch on and off which can quickly burn out the contacts of most timers - all my timers are simple mechanical ones and are marked 3kW resistive (not inductive). My contactor is a relay rated at 30A, the timer only switches the small current taken by the relay coil, so is subject to only a tiny current.

contactor.jpg

The two pin plug on the thin wire goes into the timer - main current to the lamp and ballast goes through the relay contacts.
 
J

jaydag71

Member
Good aft,, I am having a similar problem with my Galaxy digital ballast- 400W,, it will fire up the HPS bulb no problems but when I install either if the 2 hallide bulbs I have, neither of them fire up, they just try briefly to flash up but give up after a few seconds....

I am wondering what is the scoop here,, the ballast is supposed to automatically figure out which bulb is installed and fire either type- there is no knobs to switch, and I am starting to get bummed out about this cause I need the MH going, not the HPS right now!

Has anyone opened up these ballasts or knows of any reason why it might be failing like this? I am handy with electronics so could do some tweaking if required, but surely it should just work as stated. Perhaps I am missing something. There is no timers or anything else involved,, just a typical residential outlet and 1 400W ballast... any ideas? thanks in advance, J
 
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bigdog1002

Well-Known Member
jaydag71... Out of curiosity, what brand are your bulbs? I'm nearly 5 weeks into my first ever grow and the MH was working for about 2 weeks (I had to coax it into working sometimes and this new bulb worked for exactly one day). I'm not so worried because the Super HPS has more blue/violet than typical HPS bulbs. I actually wouldn't mind it if my girls stretched a little more. My Pineapple Express is so compact and bushy that it's hard to LST. My White Widow stretched out a little more but not much
 
SIR SMOKER

SIR SMOKER

New Member
bigdog1002 said:
I have a 400W Galaxy ballast. I'm using a Hortilux Blue (not the Super Blue) MH lamp. Of course I have my system on a timer. The problem is that sometimes the bulb doesn't light in the morning. The first time I had to unplug and replug the ballast then the light came on. This morning, nothing. I have a Hortilux Super HPS that I plug in and it fires EVERY SINGLE TIME when the timer goes on. As a side note, I had another identical MH bulb that did the same thing before eventually burning out in 2 weeks. Do these ballasts just not like those particular bulbs (or vice versa)? I wanted to use MH in veg but I don't wanna be worried if my lights are actually gonna come on or not. I've switched to the Super HPS for now since I know it's gonna fire every morning and it has enhanced blue/violet spectrum so that helps some. But I'm really curious why the MH bulb is so finnicky
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Try operating the lamp without the timer first and let us know what happens.
You dont need a switchable ballast. If you have an HPS ballast you can run both MH and HPS lamps in the same fitting as long as the bulb you use does not exeed the ballasts wattage.
 
J

jaydag71

Member
Thanks for the speedy replies- the halide bulb that was sold along with the rest of the setup is an Eye multi-metal M400X/U, it appears to be in alomost brand new condition. The other halide bulb was one I had bought a bunch of years ago for an older magnetic ballast- it is a Phillips MH400/U and though had been sitting around unused for a number of years,, is also in "almost new" condition. As I mentioned, both bulbs do start to fire, but after a few tries at igniting the bulbs, the ballast simply gives up it appears. With the HPS bulb installed, the lamp fires up fine with no issue.

I am just on my way to check the 2 bulbs out with my friends ballast which has a switch for various types, I am fairly sure though that the problem lies within the ballast and not the 2 bulbs. We shall see....

Thanks again,, I hope this gets resolved but was hoping that someone else had already been through this issue and found a solution for it! Regards, J
 
J

jaydag71

Member
Well it took more than a few days to finally get the bulbs tested on another ballast- as I suspected they worked fine so I came back and tried one again in my ballast this morning,, only I first ran the hps in it and warmed everything up prior to installing the halide bulb- anyways it fired up fine the first try. I am hoping this was only a fluke of some type and there will be no further issues but already am noticing that the halide is emitting a high pitch ringing or humming and its driving me crazy! Is this high pitch noise normal on a digital ballast? I would suspect not- perhaps due to not running newer bulbs- this one is older than digital ballasts are- yet was still almost brand new. I am going to run it a while longer and if it doesn't stop I will try swapping out with the other halide and see if it persists. I also noticed yesterday when I was trying out one of the bulbs on my friends digital ballast that while starting up, the one of them was flickering quite a bit, it would go very bright and then not so bright, so on, and then just leveled out into normal operation.

I just took out the older bulb and am going to put in the newer one in a few minutes- the ringing seemed to get worst and changed into various pitches of noise, I figured time to cut it off after thinking about what the original poster of this thread was referring to regarding the premature failure of his bulb.

Anyways will try the other bulb and go from there, but at least it is running the halide now! I wonder if there is some failure inside the ballast, this will be the next route to deduce I suppose. lame.

regards, J
 
Jozikins

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
This is a digital ballast problem. Crappy digital ballasts do it. Lumatek and Galaxy have a high return rate. NextGen is better, but it's not the best. Phantom in my experiences, are mind blowingly reliable, a real work horse, like a magnetic ballast. Often time switchable digital ballasts have issues with MH bulbs of certain types, some more than others. The ringing, blinking, blinding you torture is definitely your ballast, I've returned my fair share and talked to the repair guys in the warehouse.

Also, out of all the quality MH bulbs, the Hortilux Blue is a sucky rip off! They die extra fast, have ultra low lumens, and just have a good color, the only thing they are good for is making the Super Blue HPS. I too was duped into it. Good advertising, and ignorant shop workers (with no fracking gardens of their own!) sold me on it. The Hortilux Blue has issues, as far as I've heard. I basically stick to Sun Master, but recently GGL (Global Greenhouse Lighting) has been blowing my fracking mind!
 
Himself

Himself

Member
The digital ballasts run at a much higher frequency than magnetic ballasts; 20,000 vs 60 hertz. I believe this is where the hum is coming from. There was an article in last month's High Times about this issue. The conclusion of the article was that digital ballasts burn out HID bulbs faster than magnetic ballasts. The bulbs on the market today were designed to be run on magnetic ballasts. While digital ballasts are a good idea (more energy efficient, less of a fire hazard) until the industry comes up with a bulb designed for them I am sticking to the 100+ year old idea of magnetic ballasts.

However the comment upstream about the current spike at start makes a lot of sense to me as well.
 
Jozikins

Jozikins

Well-Known Member
Himself said:
The digital ballasts run at a much higher frequency than magnetic ballasts; 20,000 vs 60 hertz. I believe this is where the hum is coming from. There was an article in last month's High Times about this issue. The conclusion of the article was that digital ballasts burn out HID bulbs faster than magnetic ballasts. The bulbs on the market today were designed to be run on magnetic ballasts. While digital ballasts are a good idea (more energy efficient, less of a fire hazard) until the industry comes up with a bulb designed for them I am sticking to the 100+ year old idea of magnetic ballasts.

However the comment upstream about the current spike at start makes a lot of sense to me as well.
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I think you are dead on with the cycles! 20,000hz vs 60hz is a big deal! I don't think it would be a power spike because a ballast isn't supposed to spike. I'm pretty sure they all have an amount of surge protection built in.
 
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