Flickering bulb

[Proteus]

250w halide bulb about 4 days old flickers. Not on off but quick flicker of color change. Kinda like a weld flicker.

Any ideas y

[Aquattro]

Just the one of two? I had a time when all mine did that, but it turned out to be a bad transformer down the street. Hydro changed it out and no more flicker. Probably not your issue, but thought I'd mention it :)

[Proteus]

Ok. I'll call fortis as the powerpole behind my place was hit last week

Only have one halide

[kien]

There were two instances where I had this problem.

1. I had a bad ballast (Galaxy). Got it replaced and prob went away.
2. Bad bulb (eBay). Replaced it with another "good" bulb (also eBay) and the problem went away.

[kien]

Oh, there was a third time last year during a heat wave where my ballast overheated. It got wicket hot. I shut it down and let it cool off then powered it back up and problem went away. This was during a time when out central AC was busted so the next day I set up a fan to actively cool the ballasts. No more flickering during the heat wave.

[Proteus]

I gunna grab a new bulb when I have a tomorrow. Sure hope it's not the ballash

[kien]

I gunna grab a new bulb when I have a tomorrow. Sure hope it's not the ballash

shouldn't all that be under warranty still?

[Proteus]

Yes. Just have to contact the lfs

[kien]

Yes. Just have to contact the lfs

Cool. ya, I would start with the bulb to eliminate that possibility. If the new bulb still flickers then I'd target the ballast. If new bulb and ballast still flicker then you've got some bigger issues maybe.

[lastlight]

i'd swap the questionable bulb into a known working ballast first and see to be fair to the lfs...

[Proteus]

Yeah I will talk to Harvey at marine aquaria and explore the options. I just started flickering yesterday
He did mention it could be "breaking in". So I'll see today what's happening and go from there. I hope it's not the ballast as. It's not stocked

I'll also try a new outlet as it may be the draw from the wall

I wonder if it may be the plug from ballast to pendant

[Phil]

Maybe buy a radion lol

Just saying

[jostafew]

I just had a similar issue; was temporarily running a 250w 20k mogul lamp (not sure what it was, think it was a Radion) in a temporary pendant, powered by a Vertex electronic ballast. When I went back to the permanent fixture on the same ballast running a (new) cheap eBay DE lamp it would start fine but after warming up would begin to flicker a little. I gave it a good couple weeks to see if it would break in, but always the same behaviour. So I swapped in an old Phoenix lamp on the same fixture and ballast and it did the same thing but not as badly. I then went back to my PFO HQI ballast on the same fixture and now both of those bulbs run fine, so in my case it was the ballast acting up.

[Proteus]

Maybe buy a radion lol

Just saying

Why you gotta be like that :)

I just had a similar issue; was temporarily running a 250w 20k mogul lamp (not sure what it was) in a temporary pendant, powered by a Vertex ballast. When I went back to the permanent fixture on the same ballast running a (new) cheap eBay DE lamp it would start fine but after warming up would begin to flicker a little. Swapped in an old Phoenix lamp on the same fixture and ballast and it did the same thing but not as badly. I then went back to my PFO HQI ballast on the same fixture and now both of those bulbs run fine, so in my case it was the ballast acting up.


Makes me wonder as I'm on a vertex ballast

[Proteus]

Picked up a new giessemann 21k bulb. And ran for a day. It was orange/pink all day. But know flicker.
I am going to try one more time and if not then try a pheonix.

I'm wondering if the vertex ballast is not capable of this bulb.

Is anyone running this bulb

[The Codfather]

Not sure if you liked the bluer colour or not but I'm telling you, go with a 14k Ushio. I think by far the nicest colour, but it is a little whiter than you'd think.
I ran these for years prior to my LEDs, are you running any t5 as well as?

[Kryptic4L]

Not sure if you liked the bluer colour or not but I'm telling you, go with a 14k Ushio. I think by far the nicest colour, but it is a little YELLOWER than you'd think.
I ran these for years prior to my LEDs, are you running any t5 as well as?

fixed :)

[kien]

Not sure if you liked the bluer colour or not but I'm telling you, go with a 14k Ushio. I think by far the nicest colour, but it is a little whiter than you'd think.
I ran these for years prior to my LEDs, are you running any t5 as well as?

I too used those Ushios for a while and you're right, it is a nice crisp white, even though it's marketed as a 14K bulb. Compared to the Phoenix 14k my eyes render it (the Ushio) as somewhere between a 10k and a 14K so probably a 12K in colour cast. It grew SPS like there was no tomorrow !

[Proteus]

I would like to stick to the blue bulbs as I'm not running supplement lighting yet.

As of now the light issue is fixed. I took both bulbs back to the lfs and tested them in a icecap ballast.

The one was def off color. The other fine with no flicker. I put origanal bulb back in and so far no flicker.

I am very interested in a pheonix. And will try that next Time around

[Proteus]

So I lied bulb still flickers. Doesn't mater hot or cold. It never flicker on the icecap ballast so I'm thinking it's the vertex ballast. While I may be able to try a bunch if different bulbs. It would be silly for me to run out and buy $400 in bulbs when the ballast was 1/4 of that.
I believe the giessemann bulbs to be of good quality and is also stocked buy lfs. I am thinking to buy a new ballast and am looking for suggestions. Ballast are lacking in options since the led revolution but there are a few avalible.

I have been looking at the coralvue luxcore. Any review on this. It does have a super lumen option to overdrive the bulb.


http://reefbuilders.com/2011/07/12/luxcore-ballast-coralvue/

[kien]

I've been using the Galaxy ballast for the past 4 years. When I started the tank I had one of their dual ballasts that ran 2 halides at once. Figured it was a great idea. This way I only needed to plug in two ballasts. Unfortunately it didn't work out for me as that dual ballast had issues. I returned it within a week and just picked up two regular (Galaxy) ballasts to replace it. All three ballasts have been going strong for 4 years now. Have not had to replace or service any of them.

Keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean that they are the bees knees. The only other ballasts that I've run we're Current USA, and BlueWave. I hated how big and noisy those were.

[Proteus]

I've been using the Galaxy ballast for the past 4 years. When I started the tank I had one of their dual ballasts that ran 2 halides at once. Figured it was a great idea. This way I only needed to plug in two ballasts. Unfortunately it didn't work out for me as that dual ballast had issues. I returned it within a week and just picked up two regular (Galaxy) ballasts to replace it. All three ballasts have been going strong for 4 years now. Have not had to replace or service any of them.

Keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily mean that they are the bees knees. The only other ballasts that I've run we're Current USA, and BlueWave. I hated how big and noisy those were.


From my understanding the vertex are a relabeled galaxy. It may be this particular ballast or the make in general.
I'm going to the lfs to get a different one and hopefully return this one

[jostafew]

I ran a Vertex for a couple years with both Phoenix 14k and Ushio 10K DE lamps and I never had a problem with it. A year or so back I sold it and went to the current PFO HQI ballast so I could get the extra 10% or so out of my HQI lamps and was running that happily for a while. Then recently I picked up this other Vertex ballast when I was troubleshooting my fixture and it's only this last ballast that I've had issue with, so I don't believe there's a compatibility issue between the Vertex electronic ballast and these lamps, but simply that I've got a slightly defective unit, and possibly you do too. Either that or there are different generations of the ballast that I'm not aware of which run differently. Too bad you're so far removed, you can't just borrow a buddy's ballast to see how your lamps run. Good luck

[Proteus]

Picked up a loner ballast from lfs and put a warranty request in.
I'm sure it's just a defective unit.
I don't believe there's much difference in the electronic ballast. No matter which brand