Lighting wiring issue

[bug0926]

Does anyone have a wiring diagram for an older hamilton mh vho fixture?

I was retrofitting a canopy and obviously have 1 wire off.

Symptom:

floursecent powered by itself floursescent lights.

Flourescent and mh powered and mh flickers and flourescent doesn't light.

 

[Anonymous]

If the company still exist, you may want to call them and get the word straight from the horse.

 

[fungia]

http://www.hamiltontechnology.com/

they were very helpful to me before so i would call them or email.

 

[bug0926]

Been there...called them..and they promised to send me a vho diagram but couldn't a mh since they change the ballasts so often.

http://www.hamiltontechnology.com/

they were very helpful to me before so i would call them or email.

 

[Len]

Does your unit have a single power switch? The problem you're experiencing is strange. If it's a power switch for the fluorescents and one for the MH, the two shouldn't affect each other..

 

[Anonymous]

How bright is the VHO when it comes on? does it look like its just sorta coming on? (is possible if you hook up only one wire from the VHO ballast), and would explain a lot of you hooked up the neutral from the MH to the VHO bulb, when you flipped both of them on.

 

[bug0926]

My hunch is I have a mh wire incorrectly on the vho circuit. Yes there are two different switches...so I agree it is odd..two different switches and two different ac plugs.

Two fans and the mh are on the same switch. There are 4 wires ont he white side of the mh halide and two on the black side...how many are there typical?

Maybe I have the black wire wrong...hooked up to the vho starter circuit hence the flickering...on the mh?

Really sucks not being able to get a mh wiring diagram..heck I haven't even gotten the vho yet...they promised to send it but never did.

How bright is the VHO when it comes on? does it look like its just sorta coming on? (is possible if you hook up only one wire from the VHO ballast), and would explain a lot of you hooked up the neutral from the MH to the VHO bulb, when you flipped both of them on.

 

[Anonymous]

ok, how many metal halides and vho bulbs does that setup typically have?

What I would do, is attach a single wire to any side of a vho bulb, turn on the VHO switch, if the bulb lights up at all, then you have the right wire for it, remove it and mark it with a piece of tape, go through all the all the wires until you have the VHO bulb wires marked, now typically (atleast one would hope) that the neutral wires (ie that bring the current back) will be different colored than the hot wires. Also a typical thing is to have less neutral wires than hot wires, and have bulbs share a neutral since most of the resistance happens in the bulb so there's no worry of overheating the wire (hell the Workhorse 7 ballast has 4 hots and only 1 neutral!).

Now once you figured out which hots belong to the VHO bulbs, hook one up to a bulb, then with the VHO turned on grab one neutral (I'd guess black ones since there are less of those) and touch the other side of the VHO bulb (just touch the prongs) and you'll either see a) nothing happen, in which case that's not a neutral for the VHO, or b) the VHO bulb will get much brighter and might see a little arcing of current when you touch the prong and pull it away, which will be your VHO wire.

Your MH setup typically will have 2 wires one hot one neutral, never have heard of any sharing a neutral since they typically each have their own ballast.

Now the worst case scenario with this is the retards at Hamiliton have the same colored wiring for the VHO and same color for the MH, which is really stupid, but would make a tad of sense if the setup is for 1 MH and 2 VHO bulbs. If this is the case (ie you touch the blacks to the bulb and get no chance this might tell you that), then simply find out which ones are hot and which ones are neutral, hook up a wire to one side of the VHO bulb, then touch another wire to the other until it lights up brightly, if you put two hots(or neutrals) to a bulb it won't fire at all.

Either way find out which wire goes where using the VHO bulb(s) only, don't do this with a MH bulb.