175 w MED MH lamps burning out

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emahler said:
what is the manufacturer of the lamps? Luma is a popular lamp for fixture manufacturers to send, and they are cheap...Venture is another...then some of them go to off brands....there is a place that advertises in the back of EC mag, called The Lightbulb Store....great prices on HID lamps...but he uses a chinese manufacturer and sells them under PulseRite lamps...they have about a 40% failure rate in the first 6 months...

before you drop fixtures, replace the lamps with a sylvania/ge/phillips and monitor them...i'm willing to bet that will resolve your issue.
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The manufaturere of the fixture is Maxilume, and the ballast is by Advance. The original batch of lamps were I believe Sylvania. I am wondering if they were not the wrong kind of lamp. The ballast states (I since took one down and looked at the ballast), that we should be using M152 or M137 pulse start lamps. The problem continues however. e/m
 
benaround said:
EM,

You could check your 'fixture schedule' to see if 'pulse start and probe start'

of the same wattage were used on the job at different locations. If so, the

guys on the job seldom check more than 'watts' and 'type'. At least you

could do this without having to go to the jobsite.
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Thanks. Yes I have had a chance to check and found out that the ballast requires pulse start. I am wondering if we are not using the wrong type of lamp of the right wattage. e/m
 
wirebender said:
I just finished a roping arena with 30 High Bay 400 MH. Four of the lamps were bad and one of the fixtures had the leads mis labeled. Cooper lighting, made in Mexico.
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These are Advance electronic ballasts, with "inteliVolt" which I asume adjusts to voltages from 120 to 277 volts, no need to rewire. My first instinct was that we were connected to wrong voltage, but that does not seem to be the case. There is a re-wiring option to select lamp wattage between 150 and 175 watts. In the one fixture that I took down, the wiring was correct for our application (175 w). That just leaves me to believe that the lamps are of the wrong type, although the wattage on them is correct. Beyond that, they are exposed (I did not put in any protective lens on them), not sure if the cold has something to do with it. They are not cracked, just blacken out somewhat and fail. e/m
 
Dennis Alwon said:
I would not be surprised if it were one of these. Bad lamps would be my guess. Could also be bad ballast putting out too much power. I am assuming the correct voltage is hooked to these units???
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Since your post I have uninstalled one of the 24 fixtures and looked closely at the ballast. It is an electronic Advance IMH-175-BLS. It is marked as 120 - 277 inteliVolt, which i take to be one of those that electronically adjusts to the applied source voltage. There is a wiring diagram to change the wattage from 150 to 175, and in the one I looked at, the wiring was right for our lamp (175 w). I am thinking the lamps may be of the wrong type (they are of the right wattage, and they are MH, but they may not be a pulse start as the ballast asks for). Thanks Dennis, e/m
 
frenchelectrican said:
with the Med base both 175 and 150 W MH's i know the 150 is pulse started and majorty of the older med 175 MH are probe start if you get interchange both of it you will destory the probe start device [ i did see it happend before ] check the ballast what number it is and also check if it have a pulse start capaitor in there as well. some of 150 /175 W MH have capaitor as well.

Merci, Marc
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Hi,
I did just that this week. Ballast is electronic Advance IMH-175-C-BLS and it is a pulse start. Lamps may be of probe start type, not sure. Did not see or look for the capacitor, will do that once back at the office. e/m
 
e/m, What kind of lights did you replace? If the old lights had a remote ballast that didn't get removed, you will get burn outs.... I just recently went behind a crew that removed the old fixtures and missed removing the remote ballast inside the building... New fixtures experienced cycling & lamp burn outs after several months... I removed the old ballast and the lights work great...
 
captaincrab55 said:
e/m, What kind of lights did you replace? If the old lights had a remote ballast that didn't get removed, you will get burn outs.... I just recently went behind a crew that removed the old fixtures and missed removing the remote ballast inside the building... New fixtures experienced cycling & lamp burn outs after several months... I removed the old ballast and the lights work great...
Click to expand...
That's not the case here though. We replaced fluorescents, lamp, fixture and ballasts all in one shot.
 
I think we are close. I looked more closely into the type of lamps they had sent with the ballasts. They were not pulse starts, as they were supposed to be. So I asked and received another batch of lamps, M152's which are pulse starts. We installed those and I will be checking in a while to make sure that they are holding fast. e/m
 
Have you checked the open-circuit voltage at the bulb socket and see if it is correct?

HIDOpenCircuit.gif
 
480sparky said:
Have you checked the open-circuit voltage at the bulb socket and see if it is correct?
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This is a great post sparky, thanks. I am curious now, as to if I have the right voltage. I will check it next time I am by that project. Seems like for my application it should be between 250 and 340 volts. Thanks again, e/m
 
captaincrab55 said:
OK, Now How is the lamp marked?...
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That's a good point, I see where you are going with that. I did not pay any attention, but I will look and let you know. There are four more of the same lamps being sent to us (4 were back ordered), so I will have a chance to check it. e/m
 
Energy-Miser said:
Ok, the four lamps on back order finally arrived, I looked at them, you have to hold the base down to be able to read the markings (M152, ...). e/m
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Look again for a BU on the lamp... BU indicates the burning position. Some lamps are marked with a U for universal burn...

* Base Up=(+/-)15 degrees Vertical=(+/-)15 degrees Horizontal=(+/-)75 degrees
** Pulse Start Lamps must be used with Pulse Start Ballasts
 
captaincrab55 said:
Look again for a BU on the lamp... BU indicates the burning position. Some lamps are marked with a U for universal burn...

* Base Up=(+/-)15 degrees Vertical=(+/-)15 degrees Horizontal=(+/-)75 degrees
** Pulse Start Lamps must be used with Pulse Start Ballasts
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will look for the BU. The lamp and ballast are both pulse start, I made sure of that. Thanks for everyone's feedback, it was really helpful in resolving this for me. e/m
 
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