zog
Senior Member
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
My building has HPS outdoor security lights and we keep having bulbs go out, lucky if they last a year. Is that normal and if not any suggestions?
High Pressure Sodium
- Thread starter zog
- Start date
- Status
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
No that is not normal. They should be lasting about five years.
Bad wiring, ballast not matched with lamp are most likely causes.
Are all the lights having such short lives or certain ones? Is anybody keeping records of when each fixture is worked on, or at least marking a date on the lamp when it is changed?
Bad wiring, ballast not matched with lamp are most likely causes.
Are all the lights having such short lives or certain ones? Is anybody keeping records of when each fixture is worked on, or at least marking a date on the lamp when it is changed?
zog
Senior Member
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
Keeping records starting today 
Seems we replaced most of the bulbs this time last year, really only notice when someone (Meaning me) is working late after daylight savings and earlier sunset. Noticed the other day they were all out, assumed it was a timer issue but after looking into it today it was all the bulbs.
Part#'s on bulbs and ballasts are per label inside fixture.
Seems we replaced most of the bulbs this time last year, really only notice when someone (Meaning me) is working late after daylight savings and earlier sunset. Noticed the other day they were all out, assumed it was a timer issue but after looking into it today it was all the bulbs. Part#'s on bulbs and ballasts are per label inside fixture.
zog
Senior Member
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
Some of the bulbs we are using are out of old HPS lights we removed when we upgraded our warehouse lighting so that is likely a factor, but the smaller bulbs were replaced last year with new ones so that makes me suspect somehitng else is going on.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
Electric-Light
Senior Member
This. 208, 240v and 277v are not the same. If the ballast was replaced sometime and it was tapped wrong, that fixture is likely to have chronic issues with killing lamps early or dropping out before they should due to inadequate supply voltage from feeding 208 into 240v tap. Upper limit of 208v service and lower limit of 240v service are pretty close and lower bound of 277v can get close to upper limit of 240v. So sometimes people unfamiliar with the specific facility make wrong assumptions and hook it up wrong.
HIDs are sensitive to dips, so if it's hooked up to 240v tap on 208v service running at +6%, (because you know some sparkys think 220/230/240 whatever), it's a good possibility that it will drop whenever there's a voltage fluctuation like equipment starting up
5-6 years average life with dusk to dawn use. Philips rate their 24K hour bulbs at 67% survival meaning that out of 100 bulbs, you'll have about 67 surviving and failure rate starts going up greatly. If the place has in-house maintenance, you could hang onto about 10% of functional lamps at the time of group replacement and use them to spot re-lamp. If you run out of those spare lamps, it's time for another group replacement IMHO.
It's not unusual for maintenance guys to think they're not lasting as long as they should because they feel like they're constantly changing them even though they're actually not changing the same one repeatedly.
So, I'd compare the lamps, ballast ANSI code, then compare the ballast model rating or tap against service voltage. What brand are the lamps? Anything is game if it is some no name Made in China crap. Lamps are much harder to make than ballasts.
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mgookin
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Myers, FL
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Isn't going from light to dark kind of a color change that indicates end of life has passed?:lol:
jumper
Senior Member
- Location
- 3 Hr 2 Min from Winged Horses
He said per label in the fixture, however you must look at the actual ballast because it may have been changed to something other than what is on the label.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
"Part #s on bulbs *and ballasts*" are per label on fixture. That leaves the interconnect wiring and the supply voltage....
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
zog
Senior Member
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
Thanks everyone. There are about 20 lights. I have some things to check but i think the voltage dip may be the key. We do a lot of high current testing on breakers in our shop and that will drop the voltage in the whole building.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
zog
Senior Member
- Location
- Charlotte, NC
Typically no but maybe early mornings this time of year.
Not much of relevance here.:happyno:
The trouble is the OP did not inform how the sodium lights failed: by cycling on/off or getting fused straight away.
So to pinpoint the problem I suggested to him to use a particular brand of high pressure sodium vapor lamp (See page no.11 in https://www.1000bulbs.com/pdf/philips-332270-brochure.pdf -EcoluxNC from GE).
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
readydave8
re member
- Location
- Clarkesville, Georgia
- Occupation
- electrician
And, it was.
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