AgHhH!! Ballast question . . . YaY!!

[BCOrchidGuy]

Mine was very slow to start up at first but after I fired it five or so times it comes on pretty quickly now. I haven't changed anything, I just turned it on for an hour or so at a time and now it fires up nice and quick.

Steve, is there any chance to Hamilton using a different or unique method of firing? Does the capacitor need to charge up time and time again before the light fires?

Doug

[megatron_55]

Hey you guys . . . Got the lighting setup up and running . . . . Dang these reefstars are bright!. . . Im pretty pleased with the light . . . . Just need to find a way to supplement it with actinics . . . Any Idea?? Anyhow . . . just an update:


Everything is great . . . picked up some acro's at OA!!

Dang u guys . . . OA I can easily say is the BeSt!!. . . Thanks James and Wendell for helping me out with my light upgrade and always finding a way to answer ALL my qustions and satisfying me and and a bunch of few reefers that I know!

Thanks all!! .. . i'L post pic when I get the time . . . !!

cheers-

[Van down by the river]

if it takes more than a few seconds to start arching there is a problem, with either a componant of the ballast system or the match of the ballast to the bulb. this is a common problem when using "normal" probe start ballast with the bulbs we use in the hobby, but for some reason people have come to acept this routen of failed starts as a normal thing.
seeing as you are using a HQI with a ingightor you should not be getting anything like this and I would call the company and inquire about the problem. could be a bad ignightor, capacitor, ect..

Wow Shoot first ask questions later!?

megatron_55 was simply turning on and off his halides before they had a chance to fire up.

A MH arc tube contains various elements sush as mercury,sodium, thallium,indium,etc. These elements vaporize and coat the arc tube. When a bulb is new, they have yet to fully vaporize and that is why the initial few ignitions have a time delay. With additional firing and burn time, the bulb will ignite sooner. Also switching on and off the ballast in short intervals can delay ignition.
This is not something to call the manufacturer about.

As to warm up time of the bulb, this too is standard. I watch over a dozen various MH setups ignite and warm up everyday.

A characteristic of HID lamps is that the HID lamps take several minutes to warm up (ranging from 3-5 min). After any interruption of power (1/20th of a second or more), a lamp that is hot will not start immediately, and must cool sufficiently before restarting. This time delay is called the restriking time and may take anywhere from 10-20 min for MH lamps.-Sanjay Joshi

You are welcome to call Hamilton, I have found them to be fair and helpful with after sales service. When you sell thousands of items, you are bound to have some factory defects. This doesn't mean your product is no good. It is a result of scale. I have had good and bad from all equipment manufacturers over the years.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Van down by the river

megatron_55 was simply turning on and off his halides before they had a chance to fire up.[/quote]

so how fast was he turning them off, because a couple seconds is all the bulb needs to fire weather it is new or not. the rest of the time is it warming up, but it does glow right away as I am sure you know.

Originally Posted by Van down by the river

A MH arc tube contains various elements sush as mercury,sodium, thallium,indium,etc. These elements vaporize and coat the arc tube. When a bulb is new, they have yet to fully vaporize and that is why the initial few ignitions have a time delay. [/quote]


Van, sorry to disagree but there is no time delay whats so ever, the initia arc is imeadiate (talking a couple seconds maybe of delay, but not 5 min)
it is the warm up that is the 3 to 5 min period

Originally Posted by Van down by the river

With additional firing and burn time, the bulb will ignite sooner. Also switching on and off the ballast in short intervals can delay ignition.
This is not something to call the manufacturer about.

the ingnition shouldn't be any different in time but yes the warm up time will be.

A characteristic of HID lamps is that the HID lamps take several minutes to warm up (ranging from 3-5 min). After any interruption of power (1/20th of a second or more), a lamp that is hot will not start immediately, and must cool sufficiently before restarting. This time delay is called the restriking time and may take anywhere from 10-20 min for MH lamps.-Sanjay Joshi

this is refuring to the warm up not the initial start, the bulb will do an initial start with in a couple seconds in which the inner tube starts to glow, this over the next coupld min will get brighter and brighter (about 3 to 5 min)

So if you turn the power off befor it is bright (you led us to assume that it wasn't even arching) of course it won't light laiter as the ballast needs a cool down period befor it will relight, about 10 to 15 min.