Philips 315w CDM Elite (CMH)

[rives]

...so, what happened to the shop vac?

It ran really fast for about half a second and then, as Jhhnn said, the all-important smoke escaped...

the cheapest outlets are rated for 15 amps at least , & even with 2 ballasts plugged into one duplex outlet on 220volts is only going to draw 10amps max ......

No Dan, you are missing the point. "Rated", in this case, is absolutely meaningless. They are built by unknown manufacturers because no reputable manufacturer would touch building something that bypasses a 100+ years of electrical standards. They meet no standards, and can claim anything they want because they aren't tested for compliance by any agency. It's like buying roadkill off of the back of someone's truck and expecting it to meet FDA standards because the meat at the store does.

10 amps at 240v, continuously, is a significant load. The receptacle and the plug are the weakest link in the circuit. This is not the place that you want to save a couple bucks.

 

[stoned40yrs]

Some of my older HPS ballast have that delay. You would have to look at the specs to see if it has that feature. All of my new ballast have it. If ur ballast does not have that feature. Look at the specs for hot re strikes. It will tell ya to wait 20 min to re fire bulbs. You should never try to re fire a hot bulb anyway. If Your bulbs are not re firing after that delay I dont know what to tell ya. Something isn't right. I have no issues re firing after the bulbs have cooled. This can take up to 30min

I use these.. The GC Series Digital Ballast uses a timed re-strike system that prevents the ballast from re-striking a hot lamp after a power failure. If a hot lamp is detected, the re-strike will be delayed for 60 second intervals until the lamp has cooled sufficiently to be re-ignited. Re-ignition is then controlled by 'Smart Start Ignition Control' and 'Soft Start Technology' software.

Solis tek ballast have something similar but its every 90 sec,.
This is all apart of our exclusive Sense Smart safety mechanism that we introduced to this industry in 2010. If it detects any sort of anomalies or disturbances it will turn off the lamp and attempt to re strike every 90 seconds until it deems that it is safe to ignite. 99% of the time an error code is displayed

My hps digitals may fire back up so fast because the bulbs are in air cooled tubes being cooled by some cold ass outside alaskan air I watched them fire back up in a minute of power out though.

 

[rives]

My hps digitals may fire back up so fast because the bulbs are in air cooled tubes being cooled by some cold ass outside alaskan air I watched them fire back up in a minute of power out though.

Premature re-strikes are really hard on both the lamp and the ballast, and will shorten their lives significantly. On those ballasts with re-strike protection, they have no way of knowing what conditions the lamp are operated in and have to go with worst-case.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is an exceptionally good deal on the right receptacle hardware for many growers-

https://www.gordonelectricsupply.co...MIrrSqts_02QIVDspkCh1ZSwdpEAkYASABEgIPBvD_BwE

 

[Jhhnn]

Premature re-strikes are really hard on both the lamp and the ballast, and will shorten their lives significantly. On those ballasts with re-strike protection, they have no way of knowing what conditions the lamp are operated in and have to go with worst-case.

Modern electronic ballasts must have some way to evaluate lamp condition or they'd treat power interruption & restrike the same as a cold start, just like "dumb" mag ballasts. Quite how that is accomplished I don't understand.

 

[rives]

Modern electronic ballasts must have some way to evaluate lamp condition or they'd treat power interruption & restrike the same as a cold start, just like "dumb" mag ballasts. Quite how that is accomplished I don't understand.

By "[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]knowing what conditions the lamp are operated in", I was referring to the ambient conditions and how quickly the lamp would cool down to the condensation point to insure that the first strike would ignite the lamp.

I imagine that they are using CMOS logic chips and a capacitor to keep the memory up during an outage. CMOS requires so little power that it would be easy to do this for the 15 minutes required, and then simply allow the control logic to revert to the cold-start methodology. [/FONT]

 

[Hammerhead]

how does it know bulb temps?.

GC ballast checks temps every 60 sec until it can re strike. No set 15m delay..

Maybe a temp sensor in the ballast? When that cools to a know value it tries to re strike .

 

[Jhhnn]

By "[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]knowing what conditions the lamp are operated in", I was referring to the ambient conditions and how quickly the lamp would cool down to the condensation point to insure that the first strike would ignite the lamp.

I imagine that they are using CMOS logic chips and a capacitor to keep the memory up during an outage. CMOS requires so little power that it would be easy to do this for the 15 minutes required, and then simply allow the control logic to revert to the cold-start methodology. [/FONT]

I really don't know but I think it has to do with soft start tech. The ballasts Hammerhead references apparently check the resistance, the capacitance, the something about the lamp every minute until it's cool enough to fire. Other ballasts may just check once & go to a countdown timer as you suggest before they try again.

I don't have the means to do it but a person could set up a test rig to switch off the power, switch out the hot lamp for a cool one & switch it back on... see if it fires.

 

[Hammerhead]

I have done that in a old Welthink 315 ballast. A hot ballast fires a cold bulb. I don't remember if it even has that feature

 

[Jhhnn]

I'd have to dig a lot deeper into the tech aspects of it all to understand it better than I do & my old head isn't really up for it. The main takeaway is that restrike should occur in the several minutes after a power interruption. The ballast shouldn't require a hard reset from another off/on cycle to do that.

 

[rives]

how does it know bulb temps?.

GC ballast checks temps every 60 sec until it can re strike. No set 15m delay..

Maybe a temp sensor in the ballast? When that cools to a know value it tries to re strike .

It doesn't know, that's why the delay is long enough to accommodate all conditions.

When I first set up my PLC, I played around with the timing on re-strikes because my ballasts don't have that feature. It was taking about 7 minutes to cool adequately, and I set the timer for 9. That summer I discovered that the delay wasn't enough in hot weather and changed it to 15.

 

[Hammerhead]

The delay is only a 60 sec cycle It wont fire until the temp has cooled enough. How does it know what temp it is?. Evey 60 sec it looks for a temp some where.

 

[rives]

The delay is only a 60 sec cycle It wont fire until the temp has cooled enough. How does it know what temp it is?. Evey 60 sec it looks for a temp some where.

In the case of this ballast, it is probably looking at another electrical characteristic of the circuit, as Jhhnn mentioned. There is nothing in place for it to check the temperature of the lamp.

 

[Hammerhead]

I'm sure its something simple. These ballast are not that complicated.

 

[Zeez]

Maybe just a timer after shutdown that temporarily (15 mins) disables the circuit?

 

[dansbuds]

It ran really fast for about half a second and then, as Jhhnn said, the all-important smoke escaped...



No Dan, you are missing the point. "Rated", in this case, is absolutely meaningless. They are built by unknown manufacturers because no reputable manufacturer would touch building something that bypasses a 100+ years of electrical standards. They meet no standards, and can claim anything they want because they aren't tested for compliance by any agency. It's like buying roadkill off of the back of someone's truck and expecting it to meet FDA standards because the meat at the store does.

10 amps at 240v, continuously, is a significant load. The receptacle and the plug are the weakest link in the circuit. This is not the place that you want to save a couple bucks.

oh ok .... i gotcha now , your talking about the outlets on the hydrocrunch

 

[zachrockbadenof]

oh ok .... i gotcha now , your talking about the outlets on the hydrocrunch

not sure what 2 mean... i have '2' of these 315's.. each plugged into a sep circuit (15amp circuits), with 1 small fan on each- according to the manufacturer , on 110 they draw 2.9amps... the fans draw really nothing... so maybe i'm drawing 3.5amps on a 15amp circuit- is that a problem??

 

[Hammerhead]

He is talking to rives

 

[BenjaminScissor]

There is probably an overload relay in the load line like an air conditioning compressor, when it gets hot, it opens the circuit then after it cools off it closes the circuit. So it is not really a temperature sensor in the traditional sense.

 

[BenjaminScissor]

3.5 amps on a 15 amp circuit will not trip, no way unless your breaker is bad or there is a dead short and if it is a short it will trip the second you reset it