MH high bay failure.

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

spark master

Senior Member
Location
cyberspace
I have seen multilble ballast failures from power quality over the past few weeks. our area is experiencing a heat wave, and I am sure PQ is affected. These are 208volt 400W MH high bays that appear to be 20 years old. Customer reports 2 fixtures stopped working at the same time... (on 1 circuit) and another 3 fixtures on another circuit, later on the same day. But no other damage in this facility.

any thing that can be done to prevent this ??

(let please NOT discuss upgrading to T5 high bays)
 
H

Hv&Lv

Senior Member
Location
-
Occupation
Engineer/Technician
spark master said:
I have seen multilble ballast failures from power quality over the past few weeks. our area is experiencing a heat wave, and I am sure PQ is affected. These are 208volt 400W MH high bays that appear to be 20 years old. Customer reports 2 fixtures stopped working at the same time... (on 1 circuit) and another 3 fixtures on another circuit, later on the same day. But no other damage in this facility.

any thing that can be done to prevent this ??

(let please NOT discuss upgrading to T5 high bays)
Click to expand...

When you say stopped working, you mean not coming on at all, or some cycling? Check the socket voltage on one that isn't working. See if it is just below the range needed, or if it is way low. Are you having brownouts in your areas?
 
S

spark master

Senior Member
Location
cyberspace
The ballast is bad. either a winding is open in the transformer, or the cap is no good. I am pulling one down tomorrow once I get my harness set up properly..
 
Last edited:
T

TNBaer

Senior Member
Location
Oregon
Anything with electronic ballasts would probably be more susceptible to PQ issues, not less. It's an ongoing issue I have in some T12 - T8 conversions. We did a retrofit a couple years ago and just experienced constant failures.
 
T

the blur

Senior Member
Location
cyberspace
I have a similiar problems with T8's. We installed 100 on the first job, no failures. Then we installed another 100 6 months later on a different level of a big warehouse. every single one of the 2nd job is failing.... 1 by 1. we keep going back to replace 1 or 2. and next month, it'll be another 1 or 2. The manufacturing process must be garbage, or the brand has major quality problems.

Then I had a compact flouresent fixture fail at my house. with a dusk to dawn sensor. a capacitor on the PCB blew up.
 
T

TNBaer

Senior Member
Location
Oregon
the blur said:
I have a similiar problems with T8's. We installed 100 on the first job, no failures. Then we installed another 100 6 months later on a different level of a big warehouse. every single one of the 2nd job is failing.... 1 by 1. we keep going back to replace 1 or 2. and next month, it'll be another 1 or 2. The manufacturing process must be garbage, or the brand has major quality problems.

Then I had a compact flouresent fixture fail at my house. with a dusk to dawn sensor. a capacitor on the PCB blew up.
Click to expand...

Some of those dusk to dawn photocells are not compatible with CFLs. If you notice a little striation in the lamp that could be problematic.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top