What is wrong with my ballast?

[SilentFeet]

So it's an magnetic ballast, 1K MH, and early this morning I noticed the light was off, but the ballast was humming.

I turned it off at the wall and then went to pull the cord to the bulb socket out of the ballast, and it came out real easily, it was sitting in the ballast loose.

What could this be? If it was a short circuit then I think the safety fuse at the meter would have tripped, but this did not happen.

And then a short time later I noticed the 1K HPS was dull and flickering.

Surely two ballasts couldn't go at once?

I turned the HPS off, as sometimes if there is a power interuption they take a while to restart, so I don't know if this is the problem.

Could there have been a strong electrical surge that blew everything?

I'm going to drill out the rivets on the MH and see what it looks like inside, but I think it will have to be replaced.

I want to try to restart the HPS and see what happens, but I don't know if I should interrupt the dark period, as I'm one week into 12/12.

Anyone experience this problem before?

 

[SilentFeet]

Well I went and turned the HPS on, and it worked fine, so I don't know what the problem was before. I interrupted the dark period for about 15 minutes though, hope this does not make them stop flowering.

I then drilled the rivets out of the MH and took the cover off, and I found that the hard plastic bit on the inside, that holds the wires and plugs, was broken, it fell away into bits.

So that's why the pins from the bulb cable wouldn't plug in.

It's going to be dodgy trying to connect the pins from the cable to the remaining fittings, they are going to have to be held in place with tape.
Going to have to keep the dog out of the grow room in case he dislodges them, and causes a fire.

Hopefully I can get it to work, and it will see out this grow to harvest, but it's not going to be very safe.

So I have found the green wire is the earth wire, but which is the positive and the negative? The blue or the white?
Will it matter if I connect them the wrong way around?

 

[troutman]

Leave the lights off for now until they should go back on.

No need to stress the plants out.

Make sure your bulbs are well seated tomorrow and try again.

Good Luck.

 

[Floridian]

If your MH load wasn't making a connection it wouldn't trip the fuse because there would be no continuity or electrical connection,no short to ground.How old is the HPS lamp?They will cycle at the end of life or if defective.Sounds like a coincidink or comedy of errors if you know what I mean.One probably has nothing to do with the other but let us know what you find

 

[SilentFeet]

I think I can get the MH working,that's if there is nothing else wrong with it, but it's going to be scary when I first flick the switch to turn it on, wont know if it will blow up or what.

But whatever, it's going to be a fire risk, but at least I run the lights at night when I'm home, so if there is a fire hopefully I will pick it up quickly.

I don't want the fire dept. coming in my grow room to put out a fire!

 

[troutman]

Don't look at it when you plug it back in just in case.

Be ready to unplug it fast though.

 

[SilentFeet]

Got it working, probably not that safe though.
With the proceeds from the upcoming harvest I think I better get a new ballast.
I think ballasts need to be replaced after a while anyway, as they lose output.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

Ugh. I would have a hard time leaving the house when that light is on, if it were mine. I'd look for used ballasts, see if I could find a new socket to wire in there, something you can reliably plug the hood cord into.

Know what I mean?

 

[OldPhart]

From the picture, the ballast actually looks fairly well put together. I would take that big yellow plug thing, that I assume is the problem, and cut it completely out. then go get some type of washers that can fill the big ass hole, and allow a 1/2 inch box connector with a clamp on it (or better yet a rubber compression fitting to make it water resistant). They make box adapters, which are basically a big washer for using larger box knockouts with smaller fittings. Once all the fried connector is gone, use the existing terminal strips to connect the wires directly to the ballast. that is assuming that all wires go to a terminal strip, if they don't, just get some high temp wire nuts. I wouldn't go throwing the ballast away because some silly plug got fried, nothing beats hard wired IMO.

OP

 

[SilentFeet]

From the picture, the ballast actually looks fairly well put together. I would take that big yellow plug thing, that I assume is the problem, and cut it completely out. then go get some type of washers that can fill the big ass hole, and allow a 1/2 inch box connector with a clamp on it (or better yet a rubber compression fitting to make it water resistant). They make box adapters, which are basically a big washer for using larger box knockouts with smaller fittings. Once all the fried connector is gone, use the existing terminal strips to connect the wires directly to the ballast. that is assuming that all wires go to a terminal strip, if they don't, just get some high temp wire nuts. I wouldn't go throwing the ballast away because some silly plug got fried, nothing beats hard wired IMO.

OP

The yellow is actually the tape I used to tape the wires to the pins on the hood cord.

It will be ok, just as long as I don't trip over the cord while I'm watering and pull the wires off the pins.