power compact ballasts and bulbs in coralife hood

[jesserettele]

I got a free 48" power compact hood that is from coralife and am trying to decide how to get it to put some light on my 48" long fuge. I plugged it in and one 10k bulb and one actinic bulb came on. So I unplugged it and GENTLY took it apart. After taking it apart and pulling out the wires tracing them to their ballasts and to the switches I plugged it in again and then no actinic and only faintly flashing 10k, but from both this time. Arghhh!

So, it looks like new ballasts and probaly new bulbs. One 10k bulb mounting plug broke off the glass exposing the filaments.

So what can I do to save some money here? There are 2 each 65 watt 10k's and 2 each 65 watt actinics with a total of 4 each 65 watt coralife ballasts. I am not sure what is bad and what is working. The power compact bulbs have the 4 pin flat blade plug not the 4 square pin design.

[Gseclipse02]

It may be better to just put t5's in the fixture. Check what the ballast says the one I has was good for t5's also so I just switched them out

[CoryDude]

Replace the bulbs first, then do the ballast if that doesn't fix it.

[justahobby]

Wouldn't you need to replace the "reflectors" for reflectors, plus endcaps?
I'm no electrician but it sounds like loose wiring. Does the flickering change intensity when you move the wiring around?

It may be better to just put t5's in the fixture. Check what the ballast says the one I has was good for t5's also so I just switched them out

[Gseclipse02]

Wouldn't you need to replace the "reflectors" for reflectors, plus endcaps?
I'm no electrician but it sounds like loose wiring. Does the flickering change intensity when you move the wiring around?

i think they come with sometype of reflector and i made my end caps out of those yellow wire butts


i did this just because how much pc bulbs cost and how short of a life the bulbs have

[justahobby]

They usually come with a flat reflector for PC's. I wasn't sure if they would be worthy of using. Yeah, the price is slightly retarded for less intensity AND shorter life.

[CoryDude]

Bulbs will flicker when they get old or develop a short. A loose pin on the bulb can do the same. Unless the ballast shows signs of getting wet or excessively hot, I'd check the bulbs first.

Also, if a ballast is bad, it will usually work for a few seconds, and then a internal circuit will trip and shut if off completely. Just my experience in the matter.

[jesserettele]

Bulbs will flicker when they get old or develop a short. A loose pin on the bulb can do the same. Unless the ballast shows signs of getting wet or excessively hot, I'd check the bulbs first.

Also, if a ballast is bad, it will usually work for a few seconds, and then a internal circuit will trip and shut if off completely. Just my experience in the matter.

I plugged in the hood before taking it apart and one bulb on each of the two main power switches was working fine with no flickering. The other two bulbs were not flickering or lighting up or anything. The weird thing is that there are two bulbs per switch but only one bulb per switch was working.

Then I took apart the hood, pulled the wires out to see where the were going and traced the switches to the two ballasts on each switch. I have a total of 4 ballasts, one for each bulb. Then I re-plugged the hood in, turned on the switches and a completely different presentation.

The two bulbs on one switch didn't come on or even flicker where previously at least one of them came on. The other two bulbs just faintly came on close to the plug part only and flickered slightly. So on this switch where only one bulb was working, now both bulbs just barly glowed and slightly flickered just at the plug section of the bulb.

I tried unplugging the hood from the wall, re-pluggin it back in, then switching the switches on and off, on and off. nothing changed.

The 2 bulbs that weren't working were on the same side of the hood along with their ballasts. The bulb that was badly corroded and had the plastic plug break off of the glass exposing the filaments was also one of those bulbs on that side that wasn't working in the beginning. The weird thing is that before I tried to unplug the bulb that wasn't working (and that ended up breaking the plug off) it was flickering slightly and glowing close to the plug end. The plug actually broke off after this when I tried to disconnect the plug to try and swap bulbs around in the hood.

Wouldn't you need to replace the "reflectors" for reflectors, plus endcaps?
I'm no electrician but it sounds like loose wiring. Does the flickering change intensity when you move the wiring around?

I worked on each wire tracing it and at every wire crimp site jiggeld it to see if the bulbs did anything different but no change, nothing.

I priced out new fixtures and ballasts and bulbs leaving it all in the hood with the flat reflector and it is about $100 to get 2 each T5 54W bulbs with fixtures and ballasts.

[CoryDude]

Sounds like you're going to have fun on this one.

Try and get the specs on the ballast and see if you can find a wiring diagram. Then if you have a volt meter (a cheap anolog one is always handy to have around) you can check for loose wires that cause a voltage loss (leave the unit unplugged for this part). If you're comfortable, you can switch the ballast on and see if you're getting the needed voltage at each end.

The only reason I recommend trying this is because I had a similar situation with a hamilton vho fixture. After buying new bulbs and ballast, it still wouldn't work. Turned out there was a short in the wiring and I could have saved a lot of $$$ by checking it first.

Best of luck to you.