Help wiring a HPS bulb and ballast

Hey there, I'm new to the forums and growing.

Have just gone out and purchased myself a ballast HPS bulb. The problem I have is that I expected the ballast to be a straightforward plug in and light on, which isn't the case. I think it's easy enough to get working, but I'd appreciate some advice!

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/2120/ballastm.jpg
THat's what my ballast has on it.

From that I take it taht the L is live, the N is neutral, and there is no ground?

Also does it matter how I connect the wires to my Bulb socket? It's one of those screw types.

Thanks for any help!

i wired my own shit. on side live one side neutral and no there is no ground. as for which connects to your bulb it should have some indication which side is which.

Thanks for the reply!

Is it dangerous not having a ground? What could happen?
Here's the diagram on my ballast


Following what's here, the bulb socket then goes on the neutral wire?

If I wire it wrong, could the ballast be dammaged? Or will the bulb simply blow?

Oh and lastly, my ballast says:
Sodium/metal halide

would I have to take out the ignitor to use a metal halide bulb? I hear you don't need ignitors for them.

sorry dude i donno i have a cfl setup.. but i know ground aka earth is used as a safety feature but lights don't always have them

Ok what you do is there are 2 COM wires(common) usually white or yellow. One goes to the white wire on your lamp and one goes to the white wire for power. It doesn't matter which COM you use for what. Then you will have black cords, should say 120, 240 and 277. You want the one that says 120 for your black power cord. And for the black wire for your lamp it usually says lamp and should be red.

Also you just ground out to the ballast itself. Put the mounting screw threw the mounting hole and attatch the ground wire.

MH have capacitors not ignighters, but the HPS has one. I've never seen a ballast scematic like yours. I've wired hundreds in a previous employment.

I've never seen a ballast scematic like yours.

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Yeah, It's probably because I live in South Africa lol

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'm gonna wire it up sometime next week, busy atm with my gf graduation ball, but I'll post how it goes.

BlueMind said:

Yeah, It's probably because I live in South Africa lol

Anyway, thanks for the help. I'm gonna wire it up sometime next week, busy atm with my gf graduation ball, but I'll post how it goes.

Click to expand...

Ahhh I see. You probably run 220 then. I travel to south america every year and the plugs are different there and so is the voltage.