High Pressure Sodium Fixtures

[Chamuit]

I need a little help troubleshooting HPS lights.

I was called out two weeks ago to replace ballasts in two HPS fixtures that had quit working. The two fixtures were on two seperate banks of lights. The banks of lights kept tripping the breakers. I replaced the ballasts and lamps in each of the fixtures. Friday, I received a call that one of the banks had tripped three times since.

I was wondering if any of you could give me an idea of how to go about troubleshooting what may be wrong. My guess is that there is another ballast that is getting ready to give up the ghost. The superviser of the area said that two fixtures "act funny" when the breaker is reset.

I'm a light light commercial guy so this kind of troubleshooting is not as second nature to me. Any pointers to trim my time down be greatly appreciated.

 

[quogueelectric]

Three parts to this and the rest is mechanical fixture related . It is either the starter the lamp or the balast.
It almost doesnt pay not to replace all 3 greenlee makes a tester which lives in my truck for the last 25 years if you really need to find out which one is bad.
In my experience it usually was the ignitor or the lamp but when the problems start the other two arent far behind.
Just put in the rebuild kit wash the lens and it is good for annother 5 years or so.

 

[mdshunk]

I'm curious what makes you so sure that the ballast is even what's making the breaker trip? It may well be, and often is the case, but the underground conductors are also suspect. I might recommend that since you're dealing with so few fixtures, that you put an inline fuse in each fixture standard's handhole and see which one blows in time. There's your culprit. If none of them blow, but the breaker still trips, megger the conductors.

 

[quogueelectric]

I'm curious what makes you so sure that the ballast is even what's making the breaker trip? It may well be, and often is the case, but the underground conductors are also suspect. I might recommend that since you're dealing with so few fixtures, that you put an inline fuse in each fixture standard's handhole and see which one blows in time. There's your culprit. If none of them blow, but the breaker still trips, megger the conductors.

Much nicer job to individually fuse each light.

 

[480sparky]

I've seen this too, and it wasn't the fixture or the underground wiring.

One was a real bear to troubleshoot. We'd spend hours.... no, days.... searching, metering, megging, replacing. Then one day as a guy in a bucket truck was rewiring a suspected-bad fixture, the 12s in the pole got away from him and we had to repull them. As we removed them from the handhole, we found the bare spot on one of the hots, and the others were pretty thin.

Over the years, the wires in the pole itself had been banging on the inside of the pole swaying in the wind for so long, the insulation was worn off 12' off the ground.

So we got a couple rolls of smurf tube and sleeved all the vertical runs.

In another case, the underground runs were in #6, with 10s going up the pole. In the handhole, everything was made up with split bolts and wrapped with tape. Over the years, the tape had worn through from leaning against the inside of the pole. We figured the curcuit would turn on, and the heat would expand the wires enough to move the splice. Turn it off, and they would move again when they cooled. Didn't move much, but over 30 or 40 years it was enough to wear through 5 or 6 layers of tape. Rewrapped with rubber tape and 'trained' the spliced to the center of the pole.....

 

[SiddMartin]

I've seen this too, and it wasn't the fixture or the underground wiring.

One was a real bear to troubleshoot. We'd spend hours.... no, days.... searching, metering, megging, replacing. Then one day as a guy in a bucket truck was rewiring a suspected-bad fixture, the 12s in the pole got away from him and we had to repull them. As we removed them from the handhole, we found the bare spot on one of the hots, and the others were pretty thin.

Over the years, the wires in the pole itself had been banging on the inside of the pole swaying in the wind for so long, the insulation was worn off 12' off the ground.

So we got a couple rolls of smurf tube and sleeved all the vertical runs.

In another case, the underground runs were in #6, with 10s going up the pole. In the handhole, everything was made up with split bolts and wrapped with tape. Over the years, the tape had worn through from leaning against the inside of the pole. We figured the curcuit would turn on, and the heat would expand the wires enough to move the splice. Turn it off, and they would move again when they cooled. Didn't move much, but over 30 or 40 years it was enough to wear through 5 or 6 layers of tape. Rewrapped with rubber tape and 'trained' the spliced to the center of the pole.....

split bolts w/ tape are the worst for a pole base. They are a b*tch to disconnect when trouble shooting and take up a crap load of space. I replace them w/ polaris, makes it so easy to make any disconnections in the future IMO

edit to add, i've also found the same thing as you described, the splitbolt had rubbed through and welded itself to the pole

 

[Chamuit]

By the way

By the way

These are high bay fixtures. They are in the ceiling of a warehouse.

Marc (or anyone else),

Could you give me a brief description of how you would put fuses in. These are hanging off of 4? boxes, 16/18 feet in the air.

 

[frenchelectrican]

To install inline fuse holder it will depending on if the luminaire is cord / plug set up or hardwired verison it will make the diffrence and also what voltage ya running on this luminaire ?

Merci,Marc

 

[quogueelectric]

These are high bay fixtures. They are in the ceiling of a warehouse.

Marc (or anyone else),

Could you give me a brief description of how you would put fuses in. These are hanging off of 4? boxes, 16/18 feet in the air.

Can I be brief? Good I will let Marc explain.

 

[BackInTheHabit]

What is the voltage?

Are you matching the ballast wattage with the proper wattage bulb?

 

[mdshunk]

These are high bay fixtures. They are in the ceiling of a warehouse.

Marc (or anyone else),

Could you give me a brief description of how you would put fuses in. These are hanging off of 4? boxes, 16/18 feet in the air.

They make a 1/2" pipe size by 3/8" (guess, maybe it's 1/2") nominal reducing washer specially for putting a panel mount fuseholder in a box knockout. Both of these items are easily sourced from places like Grainger or Newark InOne.

 

[Chamuit]

What is the voltage?

Are you matching the ballast wattage with the proper wattage bulb?

Yep, yep, yep!

We installed universal ballasts. They came with new starters and we relamped the two fixtures. One bank has stayed on with no problems, the other has not. What makes me think it is the ballast is that the lights do come on and stay on for a good long time before going out. I'm guessing the heat build up during the day causes the failure.

I did call the warehouse this morning to order the fuse holder Marc talked about.