quick question about ballast

all the lights in my area just flickered on and off, and my magnetic ballast went off but didnt come straight back on, instead it was making a really fast clicking kind of noise so i turned it off from wall and then turned it back on and it worked fine, question is if this were to happed say when i'm asleep, what would happen? would it come back on by itself or will it just keep clicking and is it safe?
Thanks

Ballasts are designed to slowly increase the power so you don't instantly give maximum power to the bulb without warming it up first. This can create a problem if the power flickers on and off. The ballast wasn't designed to stop power for a moment and immediately return to the same power output level. It was designed to slowly build up to maximum power when the power is shut off awhile and turned back on again. If the power isn't out long enough, the ballast may not return to it's rest state. When you buy a complete lamp with the ballast built in and an instruction manual, it will say that when you turn it off, you must wait x amount of time before restarting.

The most common way to avoid problems when the power flickers is to add an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) using a backup battery &/or use capacitive circuitry just for brief power flickering.

Hi, thanks for the response, the power just flickered again and this time i left it to check to see what happened and after about 20-30 secs of it humming/clicking it lit back up, i'm quessing this could damage my ballast, power flickering is not common where i live but trust it to happen now eh lol

I'm not sure about the potential for ballast damage and there also may be an increased chance of bulb failure to consider as well. The problem is that an electrical system that can handle high wattage lights and safely provide enough power when it briefly goes out would probably be expensive. It depends on your setup but if there's just one ballast, it would probably be cheaper to just buy a backup one.

I just checked and they are expensive man lol but like u said, think i will get a back up ballast and bulb
Thanks for ur help +rep