Ballast/lighting question
 

I have 3 single ended 250w bulbs (lumenmax elite pendents) with 3 250w HQI ballasts which have run flawlessly for 4.5 yrs.
A few days ago a bulb didn't fire, the bulb was about 9 months old so I assumed it was done for and replaced it with another 9 month old bulb that I had. Today it went too so I replaced it with a 6 month old bulb and it didn't work, I then tried a 1 month old radium bulb and that didn't work either.....So I figured I needed a new ballast....tonight another bulb on a different ballast went. Is this coincidence? Am I going to need to replace all 3 ballasts or could there be something else going on, the ballasts are warm like they are when they are working???? I don't want to replace all the ballasts if I don't have to :sad:

Very odd. Only thing i can think of is that HQI bulbs are overdriven i think and hard on bulbs. Perhaps the SE bulbs just cant take it and are packing it in from stress. It may also be hard on the ballasts too. I just lost one of my ballasts last week after only 2 years. It was a HQI running DE bulbs.

The radium bulbs, according to everything I've read are supposed to be run on these ballasts but the bulb wouldn't even flicker

That does seem odd. I had the same thing happen on one of my ballasts the other week. I turned it on and off repeatedly with no firing of the bulb. I then turned it off for about a minute and back on and it worked. It worked fine for a few days then did the same thing. I haven't had a problem with it ever since but am not sure whether its the ballast (dual PFO), or the bulb as the bulbs are only a couple months old.

Marie maybe the ballasts are blown

About a year ago when I first got my light fixture and ballast I had this happen. They were brand new ballasts (galaxy) and the first one would only run for 4 hours then would shut down. Returned it for another brand new one and the second one would run for 6 hours then shut down. The second one did this a few times before it eventually stopped firing all together. Wasn't the bulbs because they were brand new and I swapped them around to test. Third time was the charm as they say. Been running my third replacement ballast ever since.