175 watt halide wiring

[scuglass]

just picked up a 2x 175 watt halide set up 2x m57 ballast.

there are 6 wires comming from the ballast box green, red, orange black white and yellow

what goes to what??? :eek: lol dont know what i have gotten myself into

ne diagrams pics or help would be appreciated i cant tell from teh diagram on the ballast.??

[Delphinus]

There has got to be something more than just different colours. Is there any kind of labelling on the wiring? Any kind of diagram/schematic on the ballast itself?

For M57 there should be
- 2 common wires
- 1 wire that goes to the capacitor
- depending on the number of taps, 1 wire for 110v, 1 for 220, 370, etc. .. Typically ballasts are "tri tap" meaning three taps so it sounds like that's what you have here.

You are only interested in the tap wire for 110. The other taps should be capped off and coiled up off to the side, we don't need them (it depends on what kind of power source you have, if you were wiring it off 220 for example you'd be using that one instead). The 110 tap wire is 1 of the wires that goes to the wall plug, and one of the common wires is the other wire that goes to the wall plug. The 110 wire should be hooked up to the hot terminal, and the common wire to the neutral terminal (the neutral terminal is the wider terminal slot the wall outlet plug).

Then you take the wire to the cap and wire it to one of the terminals on the capacitor. The other terminal of the cap goes to one of the wires on the lamp socket (doesn't really matter which wire on the socket -- although if you have problems with the light starting you can always try switching these). The,. the other wire on the socket goes to the other common that we didn't use.

Ground the socket, the ballast, the enclosure for the ballast (if you have one), reflector, etc. etc. -- that all goes to the grounding terminal on the wall plug.

It may sound tricky but it's not, once you see it fit together. If you have any further problems, give me a call I can come over and take a look at things if you need.

[scuglass]

ok i think im sort of understanding it now. the 2 ballasts were already wireed to gether and to a cap and wvwrything when i got them this is what it does.

there are 277v 244v 208v(all 3 capped) and a 120v.

the 2 120v are then put together with 2 black cords. one of the black cords runs to a switch and then from the swithc to the plug(hot) and the other runs up to the lights.

then there is a ground going from the socket, bolted to the ballast box and then up to the light fixture. i then screw this down to the fixture?

then the third wire going coming from the plug in is the common i believe. this wire is then connected to two other wires. they both say com then there is two wires that come out of the ballasts that say com and then go together and then run up to the lights.

so these are the wires i have running up to the light.

yellow--- from one cap
red--- from another cap
green--- ground
white---com
black---????????????

so i attach a yellow to one of the inputs and a the white to the other
then do i split the white send it to the other one with tthe red.
grounbd it by just screwing it to the cannopy reflector.

and the black???

[scuglass]

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6889/im0003872be.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=im0003872be.jpg)

also where do i add the fan in on this diagram?

[scuglass]

edit

[KrazyKuch]

Is that the diagram of the ballast you are trying to wire up??

[Delphinus]

You've lost me -- that's a picture of a fluorescent ballast not a halide ballast?

As for the fan, if you're trying to wire the fan off the same switch as the lighting so that it turns on and off with the lights -- then what I'd do is leave the fan off the wiring for the ballast, and use a power strip on a timer: Plug the ballast(s) and fan(s) into the power strip (each using their own plug). It's sometimes better to have individual plugs for each thing because if you ever need to swap one out then you don't need to worry about unplugging the unaffected things.

[muck]

That ballast will not run MHs.
Its designed for your standard NO T12 fluorescent bulbs.

[Invigor]

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/6889/im0003872be.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=im0003872be.jpg)

also where do i add the fan in on this diagram?

you don't

[scuglass]

yes i know that is a florecent diagram that is for the no atinics so i cant plug the fan into the atinics?

here id the ba;llast for the halides
http://www.venturelighting.com/VLPS/BallastDataSheets/STDMH/V90D6111.pdf

soryy for hte confusion

[Delphinus]

yes i know that is a florecent diagram that is for the no atinics so i cant plug the fan into the atinics?


Sure you can. Plug the actinics into a power bar, plug the fan into the same power bar. Done and done! :razz:


here id the ba;llast for the halides
http://www.venturelighting.com/VLPS/BallastDataSheets/STDMH/V90D6111.pdf


Ok so according the diagram, it should go something like this:
277 black, 240 tan, 208 purple -- capped (unused)
120 orange and white common -- to wall plug (orange to hot, white to neutral)
black/white -- to capacitor
"red" (or more likely your own supplied wire) -- capacitor to socket
(other) white common (or connected to white common) -- to other terminal on socket

If you need a hand PM me and I can come over sometime.

[scuglass]

ok so i understand all that u are saying but i dont know if it was wired properly when i bought it. hereis a drawing hopefully u can understand it.

from how it is wired right now there are 2 commons from each ballast. 2 of thes(one from each runs up to the lights(which is correct.) and one leads to the plug(correct). then from the 120v one goes up to the lights (INCORECT??) and one to the plug(correct.)

so there are 2 wires one from each cap going up to the lights (one to each socket) and then 1 common (correct) a ground(correct) and a hot(incorrect????)

heres a pic(sorry its confusing)
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/9692/img0030bv.th.gif (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0030bv.gif)

[Delphinus]

Ok I see what you mean. Unfortunately I don't know if that will work or not. It might, for all I know. But I'm no electrician, so for all I know there's an equal likelihood you'll explode your bulbs. I have no idea.

If you trust whoever wired it up like that, then go for it. But if it were me, then I would switch that around. Basically make both ballasts the same (and match the diagram on the ballast schematics). There's no reason you can't tie both 120V wires to that switch, so you can still have the lights turn off and on at the same times, which is what I presume what you're after here.

At the very least, it seems to me as if running the ballasts in a sort-of series like this makes them dependent on each other. I.e., if one lamp doesn't fire then neither will the other. To me, that's a disadvantage: I'd rather be able to fire one lamp if I needed to, while I went about replacing the other lamp in the event something happened to the one of them, and so on. But that's just me...

[scuglass]

ok im gonna rewire the whole thing then. here is what i plan to do for the halides. will this work?

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4359/img0047aq.th.jpg (http://img267.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0047aq.jpg)

[Delphinus]

Looks good. Let me know how it turns out..

[scuglass]

oh yeah and i forgot about the fan. this fan doesnt have a plug on it only 2 wires coming from it blcak and white. how do i integrate this into the flourecents

[Delphinus]

You need to put a plug on it. Or you can wire it into the black and white wires of the ballast.

[KrazyKuch]

First off are you sure that fan is a 120V fan not a 12V fan!!!

[Delphinus]

Good point. If it's a 12V fan, you would plug the 12V transformer into the power strip, or the black and white power supply wires of the ballast.

Another thing to watch out for is whether it's 12VDC or 12VAC.. make sure you have the right transformer.

[scuglass]

umm all it says on it is v115.

and i wired everything else but the fan and it works

[KrazyKuch]

yeah then the fan is 120Volt

[scuglass]

ok so i hooled it all up without the fan and it works but when i hook the fan into the 2 cords going to one of the halides. the fan works but the light doesent fire up. where on the florecent wiring can i hook the fan up? or would it be easier to cut a cord off of an old lamp and just attach the wires to the cord and have it on it s own timer .

[KrazyKuch]

You have to wire the fan in before all the ballasts...NOT AFTER!!!

[Delphinus]

where on the florecent wiring can i hook the fan up? or would it be easier to cut a cord off of an old lamp and just attach the wires to the cord and have it on it s own timer .

Yes, it probably would.

If you MUST hook it up to the fluorescent ballast, then you have to hook it up to the black and white wires. This is assuming that these are the power supply wires (i.e., the plug in part). You can't run the fan "off" the ballasts. You can share the plug, but that's it. Personally I think it's better not to share plugs though, because you never know when you need to replace one thing and you don't want to affect other things while you're at it.