MH going out

[Anonymous]

:x :x

This is seriously driving me nuts. My metal halide will run for about 3 hours, and then spontaneously go out. Ballast is still on and everything. Turn the ballast off, let it cool, hit the switch and the light comes back on for another few hours. I cannot figure this out. I've redone the connections between the mogul and ballast, no improvement. It's run fine every day before this, and just decided to be a PITA today. Any help would be appreciated. 400 watt horizontal mogul wired to a a Hamilton 400 watt ballast.

 

[Anonymous]

Not much else can be wrong aside from a ballast going bad I think Chris. Not a common problem, but it happens.

 

[Anonymous]

Jim, It's not the ballast, the ballast stays on when the lamp dies. It looks exactly like every other connection problem I've ever encountered with MH. I did just take the mogul apart and find a slightly loose connection there. Doesn't look like enought to cause the problem, but stranger things have happened.

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm...very wierd. Can the ballast be on, but not functioning properly? Doesn't sound like a connection issue either, from a functionality standpoint, usually either you have a connection or you don't, even if the connection tenuous.

That being said, this sort of thing is not my strong point.

 

[Anonymous]

check your grounds, to the ballast and to the mogul, one of mine started acting up, it was a bad ground

 

[Anonymous]

Do you have a heat trip switch? ...just a thought.

 

[Anonymous]

check your grounds, to the ballast and to the mogul, one of mine started acting up, it was a bad ground

The mogul ground is what I tightened. It seems to be fixed. Thanks!