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Old 04-18-2009, 04:46 AM
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Default MH Ballast Power Draws

Hi there,

I was just wondering what the normal power draw should be on a magnetic ballast 250 watt DE bulb should be? I noticed tonight that one of the bulbs had blown a fuse on my profilux power bar so I hooked it up to a watt meter and found that it's drawing a consistent 420-430 watts after the start up phase. This seemed really high to me so I checked the other one and it's reading the same thing.

They're both factory magnetic ballasts on a geisseman fixture and the fact that they are both reading identical draws makes me want to rule out a faulty ballast (Pretty slim odds that both are pooched but you never know).

So, are these normal draws? I had been expecting in the neighbourhood of 300-350 but maybe I just pulled that number out of my butt.

Thanks
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:07 AM
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Been a while since I checked but believe my 250W PFO was around 300W
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:10 AM
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Measure how many amps they are drawing.
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:20 AM
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IIRC, 5.5 amps.
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:27 AM
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Peak amps was 7.1, once it settled down 5 and change seems to be the number I'm remembering
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:27 AM
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sounds a tiny bit high but now unreasonable, usaly they are around 400ish

Steve
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Old 04-18-2009, 05:30 AM
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