anyone have a spare 250W hqi ballast?

[Samw]

I need to send my IceCap 250W HQI ballast in for warranty. It doesn't relight if I unplug it and plug it back in while its hot. I can leave it plugged in for hours and days and it will never relight until I unplug it and then plug it back in. I noticed this in our Feb meeting when I was testing it with Stircrazy. Anyhow, it works other than that but I thought I should get it fixed anyways. I'm trying to get IceCap to send me a replacement first before I send mine in but so far haven't gotten a reply back so I'm still waiting for an answer. However, if they won't do it, I'll be without MH for about 6 weeks. If this is the case, does anyone have a spare HQI 250W ballast I could rent for this period of time? Thanks.

[Aquattro]

Sam, is that really a problem? My lights won't relight when they're hot either. I need to wait up to 15 minutes for them to fire again. And really, how often do you unplug your lights?

[Aquattro]

Sorry, didn't read properly. But why do you unplug it? Is there no on/off switch?

[Samw]

Sam, is that really a problem? My lights won't relight when they're hot either. I need to wait up to 15 minutes for them to fire again. And really, how often do you unplug your lights?


It is a defect in the ballast though. In your case, if you unplug it and plug it back in, it will relight by itself in 15 minutes right? In my case, it won't. I actually have to then unplug it again and plug it back in. Its not a problem but if I unplug the ballast, I want to be able to plug it in and leave the house (and let the lamp relight on its own) instead of waiting around for 15 minutes to plug it back in.

[Samw]

Sorry, didn't read properly. But why do you unplug it? Is there no on/off switch?


No, I did not install an on/off switch. But I can plug it into a power bar and use the switch on that.

[pocilipora]

Any way you could use an appliance timer?

[StirCrazy]

Any way you could use an appliance timer?

the ballast is defective and needs to be replaced.. why are we trying to avoid the proper solution?

Sam if IceCap has as good of a customer service as everyone used to say they did I am sure they will ship one to you and allow you a grace period to send the defective one back. I would call them instead of e-mailing though, harder to ignore a phone call.

Steve

[Samw]

Thanks for the concern. They replied a few days after I posted this and agreed to send me a replacement ballast first and I can ship the defective one back to them. So looks like problem should be solved.