Another reason not to work it hot

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stevebea

stevebea

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Southeastern PA
My co-worker can laugh about it now but the other day he was spitting nails.:mad: He was doing a T12 changeout from magnetic ballast to electronic ballast on one fixture. He installed the new electronic ballast and relamped it and the lamps would not start. Dang it.... he double checked the wiring diagram to make sure he had it right ( which he did ) and came to the conclusion he had a bad ballast. After taking the (bad) ballast back to the supply house and returning with another ballast he installed the second one. Deja vu ! To make a long story short he recieved a quick lesson in electronic ballast open circuit protection by not de-energizing this circuit to install a ballast. Another reason not to work it hot!
 
chris kennedy said:
So that would happen to the ballast if you tried to relamp with the ballast hot?
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Chris, I believe I probably used a poor choice of words by saying " open circuit protection " when in fact what I should have said was " re-lamp auto reset ". Some electronic ballasts will reset automatically and some electronic ballasts you actually have to cycle power to the ballast to reset it if you are doing a hot re-lamp.
 
Very common on PL type compact florescent, it's called "end of life protection" and will shut down the ballast if either the lamp is removed or the lamp reaches it's end of life, I also found out about this one the hard way at a large theater complex.
 
hurk27 said:
Very common on PL type compact florescent, it's called "end of life protection" and will shut down the ballast if either the lamp is removed or the lamp reaches it's end of life, I also found out about this one the hard way at a large theater complex.
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I had it happen to me on a electronic HID ballast once upon a time. I relamped the dang thing three times before I called the ballast manufacture.:roll: I felt pretty humble when I got off the phone with tech support.:mad:
 
I love this kind of thread. It might save me a lot of trouble at some point. I would NEVER expect there to be a ballast that has to be cycled off and on again to work, but I would be wrong. Is there a minimum time you have to shut the power off for the ballast to reset?
 
PetrosA said:
I love this kind of thread. It might save me a lot of trouble at some point. I would NEVER expect there to be a ballast that has to be cycled off and on again to work, but I would be wrong. Is there a minimum time you have to shut the power off for the ballast to reset?
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No minimum time Petrosa, I just turn the switch or breaker off for a couple seconds and turn it on again. It's one of those things that if you don't know... it can really have you chasing your tail.:roll:
 
stevebea said:
No minimum time Petrosa, I just turn the switch or breaker off for a couple seconds and turn it on again. It's one of those things that if you don't know... it can really have you chasing your tail.:roll:
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I could swear there are ballasts that have a minimum couple second reset. A quick cycle of the switch or breaker results in no firing of the lamp, but yet a regular two-count will turn on the ballast.

I have seen this "end of life protection" in 70W metal halide can and track fixtures and some T8 fluorescent fixtures.
 
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