I am seeking some advice on my lights. I am just getting ready to put my beautiful autos into flower and I'm having a bit of a problem. I have a 400 watt hps/mhl convertible light. a little while back I decided that I didn't want to use the MHL so decided to configure my light to just work for HPS. I have watched all the tutorials on You Tube. Looked at plenty of schimatics. I'm having problems with the ignitor. all the wiring diagrams have a 3 wire ignitor. Mine only has 2 wires. the wires are a red and a white. After wiring all together i am left with one red wire coming from the low side. does this wire go to the red wire with the lamp wire and white wire from the 120 plug? another issue is I have 2 capacitors but I'm sure I only need one. But the one capacitor is a 28uf. The other is 26uf. My 400 hps needs 56uf. what gives????? and there are resistors across both capacitors. if I put both capacitors in parallel I'm still short of 56uf. please help. I ran it for a bit...but was scared to continue until I had answers. thank you all.
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Convertible 400 Watt Hps help needed
- Thread starter Rparis103
- Start date
Douglas.Curtis
Autistic Diplomat in Training
Odd question for you.
Why?
Why?
Douglas.Curtis
Autistic Diplomat in Training
Ok, makes sense 
The resistors are very high resistance so that the capacitor charge is bled off when the system is not energized. They don't affect operation. The proper capacitor for 400w MH is 24 mfd. The proper capacitor for 400w HPS is 55 mfd but your two capacitors wired in parallel are close enough.
I've never dealt with a 2 wire ignitor but I trust this info-
http://hid.venturelighting.com/TechCenter/RemoteMounting.html
Switching from HPS to MH just involves disconnecting the hot side of the 28 mfd capacitor. It'll run either probe or pulse start MH lamps with that capacitor out of the circuit.
Capische?
Can of Bliss
Member
So if you leave everything as is and put a globe of solder on the switch so it's as if it's switched to HPS.....
It's in the link I gave you. The dotted lines in the diagrams only apply if you have a third wire.
Transformers usually have labels. Yours is likely type CWA. Red goes to red on the transformer. White goes to the center contact on the socket. The threaded part of the socket shell connects back to neutral with one side of the primary transformer winding. Ignore the dotted line going to the ignitor.
Jhhnn I'm pretty sure I have my wiring right. But after about 3 minutes the sound of my transformer tones down and my light dims. After about 1minute the sound bumps back up and the brightness of the light intensifies. Here's what I got.
Attachments
Be sure that the capacitors are wired in parallel, not in series. I can't really tell from the pics-
http://www.tdpri.com/attachments/parallel-series-gif.356597/
It's normal for the sound of the transformer to change as the lamp warms up. If it stays bright after the initial warmup you probably have it right.
