HID modular testers

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76nemo

Senior Member
Location
Ogdensburg, NY
Look, I know this has been brought up before, but I never paid any attention. What do you guys/gals think of these? :

st23mog.jpg



Can I get some opinions please, never used them.


http://mitchellinstrument.com/product/hid-light-fixture-tester-mogul-base.html
 

mcclary's electrical

Senior Member
Location
VA
I guess it depends on how much lighting you do. If you hade a tennis court with (5) 1000 watt fixtures not burning, the cost of five bulbs just for a test is expensive. If you end up not needing two of them, you've wasted enough money to buy this thing.
 

76nemo

Senior Member
Location
Ogdensburg, NY
Well, that's what I'm thinking. I am just a tool geek always looking to add to my own arsenal. I'm sure at that price it wouldn't pay off doing service work. I was just curious to see if there were any plant electricians that would chime in and say "We use those things, they're great, saves us lots of time", or,.... "Those things are junk and not always accurate".

Thanks again for the response.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
My thinking is this: If I have to get up higher than a 10' stepladder will get me, I'm swapping out the ballast kit and lamp, no questions asked.

When you've got HID luminaires 40' in the air, you can't waste time troubleshooting individual components. Get a ballast kit and a lamp, go up and replace e v e r y t h i n g.

This way, you won't get a return call in 3 weeks because you only replaced a capacitor or ignitor and now another component has failed.
 

electricalperson

Senior Member
Location
massachusetts
i do the same thing as ken. i love troubleshooting stuff but IMO its better just to replace everything and not get a call back. especially when the light is on a pole in the middle of a parking lot
 

76nemo

Senior Member
Location
Ogdensburg, NY
My thinking on the tool was that it would save time, and I refuse to be a parts swapper. Thanks guys for the additional posts. I wish it had spike protection to be able to be screwed in while online. If I have to troubleshoot lighting, it's done online.
I think I will pass on it. I would still appreciate more responses though.
Thanks again guys;)
 

Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
I can't really see this tool being that helpful. My SOP for lighting is to take ballasts and lamps with me if I know exactly what type I'll be needing. If I have no idea I'll usually show up on site and see what kind of fixtures they are and how many are out. I'll test one or two of them for socket voltage to see what the lamps to ballasts failure ratio might be. Then I'll call our shopguy or partshouse and have them deliver lamps for each of them along with ballast kits to cover 20-30% of the lights, usually. Like 480, I replace everything when it's more than just a lamp problem.

I've had a pretty clear cut pass/fail rate by simply checking socket voltage in MH. If the voltage measures right, screwing a lamp in works just about everytime. HPS I've had maybe 50% success by checking socket voltage, sometimes it's where it needs to be, but the ignitor has failed. I haven't came up with a good way to check an HPS without a known good lamp yet.

Although, my Fluke 336? seems to blink when it gets hit with the pulse(I'm sure Fluke would highly discourage this practice, hasn't damaged it yet though!), so that might be how I'll tell if the ignitor is working. I'll have to do some more investigating though...
 

jeremysterling

Senior Member
Location
Austin, TX
...I've had a pretty clear cut pass/fail rate by simply checking socket voltage in MH...

...Although, my Fluke 336? seems to blink when it gets hit with the pulse(I'm sure Fluke would highly discourage this practice, hasn't damaged it yet though!)...

Please tell me what socket voltage is acceptable for a pulse start 400W MH ballast. Will my fluke 332 blow up?
 

tom baker

First Chief Moderator & NEC Expert
Staff member
Location
Bremerton, Washington
Occupation
Master Electrician
They work great. You can do some tests with a meter, and make a socket adapter for measuring shorted ballast output.
But with HPS, its the lamp, ballast or starter. If I was doing a lot of lighting, I would have one on my truck.
 

benaround

Senior Member
Location
Arizona
They also make an 'E-26' to test 35w-175w, HID or MH. I lucked out and got them both

for $75.00 cases included. Unless you do lots of this type of work, or you want to do 'low

cost' repair, it may not be worth it for you.
 
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