Hotrod32487
Fri, 9th Feb 2007, 02:53 PM
Hard to explain but ill try my best. I got a used 4 x 96 watt ballast with two seperate sides it seems. There are two seperate switches and two seperate plugs that operate two seperate endcaps. (two ballasts?) Anyways, i have 2 actinic bulbs plugged into one side and 2 10k bulbs in the other. The 10k are working fine and have never had a problem, but the actinic on the other hand are giving me grief. They started out perfectly fine, firing up to full capacity. Slowly, one started getting dimmer and dimmer to about half its normal brightness. Slowly after that, the other one has followed suite. Every once in a while, they will fire up and be as bright as they should be but rarely, one doing it more than the other. Ive switched all the bulbs around to different endcaps and even ballasts. The actinics now do this no matter where they are plugged in. The 10ks both will work fine on the side the actinics dont. My theory is that the ballast has slowly ruined the bulbs? other idea is that the actinics are just bad... Got one of the actinics off ebay and another from another maaster (no blame whatsover) and they are both same brand and acting the same. Im at a loss so if you even took the time to read all this i appreciate that much. Thanks even more if you can help :)