480 volts lighting

[derya410]

Help

In my building we have hid lighting wired to 480 single phase (two hot leads) one going to the neutral lead and one going to the 480 lead. My question is I want to replace the lighting with a T5 fluorescent we have these light fixtures with a T5 ballast 480 two hot leads and one neutral. But there is no neutral in my 480 panel 3 phase. I wired those fixtures with two hot leads to the ballast and capped off the neutral and did not work. Although it says is a 480 ballast I don't know what is the problem. Can anyone help?

The old existing lighting in my ceiling did not have a neutral or a ground in my wiring run.

help please

 

[hillbilly1]

If they are true 480 volt ballast, there is no neutral. Is it a single ballast or two seperate ballast? If the ballast has three input leads, it may be set up for 50/50 split lighting, and the common wire is actually one leg of the 480, with the other two switching 50% of the fixture. If it is two ballast, then they are definetly 50% switching.

 

[derya410]

480 volts lighting

thanks for the reply. it is one ballast per fixture it has 3 leads on it one says hot, other one neutral, the third one says hot or neutral and i used the two hots and it didn't work.

 

[hillbilly1]

Really strange, you wouldn't happen to have a picture of it or ballast number?

 

[derya410]

480 volts lighting

no not with me here at home.but i can provide a number tomorrow

thanks again

 

[hillbilly1]

If they are true 480 volt ballast, there is no neutral.

I have to add to my own quote, as someone will say it's not true:roll:, A straight 480 volt ballast has no neutral. They are making some multitap HID ballasts now that have taps for 120,208,240,277, and 480. The electronic floresent ballasts usually just have two leads, with the electronics deciding what voltage to run on.

 

[derya410]

480 volts lighting

These lights came with advance ballast.it reads on it in a purple box 480,the leads on it one black and white[neutral],the next one black and orange[hot],the third one grey and orange [hot].I capped the neutral,i did wired two fixtures none of them worked
thanks

 

[nez]

You have to hook all three wires up. Look at the wiring diagram on the ballast. It has something to do with switching lamps off for energy savings.

 

[Mgraw]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8069213@N04/4470032036/
Is this your ballast?

 

[hillbilly1]

I did a search on Advances's web site, and it appears that the black/orange connects to one leg of your 480, black/white connects to the other leg, with grey/red connecting to your choice of either hot leg, which in turn, switches off/on two lamps. So by not connecting the black/white (which they label as neutral) you did not have complete power to the ballast. (they could have done a better job explaining what the wires did, but since they already know what they do, they felt like they did not need to share this little bit of critical info)