broken light-help

[valgae]

i have an aqualight pro 250mh 2-65w pc's. one of the pc's keeps blowing bulbs- instantly! ithought it was a faulty ballast but i just took the panel off and there is only one ballast, i thought there were two. what would cause one pc to work and one to kill bulbs? there is currently no bulb in the bad socket. when the first bulb blew it smelt horrible like burnt plastic.

 

[reefforbrains]

Theres a short in there somewhere.I could speculate all evening without knowing for sure. Do have a good multimeter?
You have the cover off already, just poke around and see where the issue is. With a good meter the problem should be obvious.

 

[scsinet]

Originally Posted by ReefForBrains
http:///forum/post/2632696
Theres a short in there somewhere.I could speculate all evening without knowing for sure. Do have a good multimeter?
You have the cover off already, just poke around and see where the issue is. With a good meter the problem should be obvious.
I dunno this still sounds like it could be a bad ballast to me.
Although there is only one ballast, it's not uncommon for ballasts to drive the lamps independantly (2 ballasts in one per se). You've proved that you have this type of ballasts because one lamp is working fine with the other socket empty.
One side of the ballast may be bad, blowing the filaments on the lamp ends when the lamp is started for the first time.

 

[valgae]

Well i talked to the warranty guy at central aquatics. were going to start w/ replacing the wiring from the ballast to the bulb and see where that gets me. should be here tomorrow.

 

[reefforbrains]

Odd are its not a bad wire causing a surge. Gets expensive to test theories if it blows the bulb right out of the gate.
I would lean more toward using a meter before tinkering with any bulbs in the socket.

 

[emzee]

Did you figure out what the problem was?
I have the same (or similar) symptom. When I first turned on my aqualight it worked fine. On the second day one of the bulbs blew. Marine Depot sent me a replacement bulb figuring the bulb was defective. The replacement bulb did the same thing, ran for 12 hours, turned off for the night, and it blew immediately when I tried to switch on the next morning. A bit more detail, in case it helps. There are two actinics which are on the same on/off switch. The one on the right blows forcing the left one to turn off. If I pull out the blown right bulb, then I can turn on the and run with just the left bulb. I can even move the good bulb from the left to the right side and it works fine. Only when I populate both then the right side blows out. Any ideas what's going on would be appreciated?

 

[valgae]

Well i got the replacement wire in last night, and after i dealt w/ the crisis to end all worlds(another thread), i took the fixture apart- wrong part. but i did discover that as scsi said my ballast is designed to run two bulbs off of it. i have an old fixture that i was just going to swap the ballast out of but is is a single and there is no way to fit both in the housing. so i guess ill wait till mon. and see what they say.

 

[valgae]

well i went back and forth with e-mails today with the tech guy. he's going to send me a new ballast. he had sent me a new wire which was a wrong part. i had sent a pic of the correct wire which is has 8 wires instead of four. also sent a pic of my balast.
he asked me to put the good bulb in the bad socket and tell him what happens. i told him unless he's sending me 30.00 bulb he's crazy! lol. so hopefully i get the right ballast and its fixed by the end of the week.

 

[valgae]

yay!!!!!! got the ballast in yesterday, just got finished putting it in. that fixed my problem. so.......... light fixed YAY!

 

[scsinet]

Sweet man!