champion
Member
- Location
- St. Louis Missouri, US
I am investigating three exterior weatherproof highpressure sodium 150w lights with 120v supply input. Customer had complained that the lights will come on and then off and repeat this on off sequence. The three lights are powered with (1) 120v circuit consisting of 10 gauge leads. The supply branch routing to the lights are underground in a 1/2 inch rigid metalic conduit approximately 100 feet more or less from the building structure and is controlled via a photocell located on the building where the conduit exits the building. It is a 20amp branch circuit. The main conduit terminates in a wp round j-box with one fixture stem mounted on the round j-box. The other two fixtures, one to the right and left of the main round j-box are supported via 1/2 rigid metalic conduit with lb type fittings and stem mounted on the threaded lb ftgs.
I thought the photocell may be defective so I bypassed the photcell and powered the lights directly to try and see what was taking place. All three lights initially came on. After about 1 to 2 minutes the fixture on the left would stop working. As you watch the left fixture, you can see it try and restart again. When It does the fixture on the right would stop working and the fixture on the left would get to what seems to be full elumination. While this was happening you could see the fixture on the right trying to restart and then the left fixture would go out again while the right fixture was nearing full elumination. ---and back and forth.
The center light remained eluminated the entire time. All are powered via the one 120v supply spliced together in the center j-box. I am no expert at high pressure sodium lamps and am a bit puzzled at what is happening with these lights.
I looked at each splice for clean connections and they look ok. The ballast reflect 3.5amp npf and 1.5amp hpf for use with 150w hps lamps. The capacitors in these ballast are not installed.
There is some water in side the main conduit tube that you can see when opening the center j-box but no evidence of water is reflected on the connection splices in the main box and the inside of the main box is relatively dry. The conduit and wire to the lights has been installed for years. I don't know how long. Apologies for the length of this question and hope I passed on all the details. Thank you in adjvance
I thought the photocell may be defective so I bypassed the photcell and powered the lights directly to try and see what was taking place. All three lights initially came on. After about 1 to 2 minutes the fixture on the left would stop working. As you watch the left fixture, you can see it try and restart again. When It does the fixture on the right would stop working and the fixture on the left would get to what seems to be full elumination. While this was happening you could see the fixture on the right trying to restart and then the left fixture would go out again while the right fixture was nearing full elumination. ---and back and forth.
The center light remained eluminated the entire time. All are powered via the one 120v supply spliced together in the center j-box. I am no expert at high pressure sodium lamps and am a bit puzzled at what is happening with these lights.
I looked at each splice for clean connections and they look ok. The ballast reflect 3.5amp npf and 1.5amp hpf for use with 150w hps lamps. The capacitors in these ballast are not installed.
There is some water in side the main conduit tube that you can see when opening the center j-box but no evidence of water is reflected on the connection splices in the main box and the inside of the main box is relatively dry. The conduit and wire to the lights has been installed for years. I don't know how long. Apologies for the length of this question and hope I passed on all the details. Thank you in adjvance
