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BALLAST QUESTION?

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njstillwell

Guest
How do you tell when your ballast have had enough and its time to replace them.Being that i bought this unit used i wouldnt be able to tell if they are losing there ability to produce the juice if you will. Also can you hook up any 150 watt ballast to a aqualight pro?
 
Y

ynotme4886

Mine was easy to tell when it went.....the bulb wouldnt stay lit and sparked in the socket.

Mine looked like this when I took it out of the case. It was fried.

p1923109.jpg


I own a 72" outer orbit unit with 3-150w halides and 8 39w t-5's and all the ballasts are mounted inside the fixture.

I swapped out the bad ballast for an icecap 150w ballast and it fit (it was actually smaller and lighter than the stock ballast)

icecapinc003004.gif


Works great and wasnt too difficult to swap out
 
N

njstillwell

Guest
Ballast are external and they are lighting my bulbs fine i just didnt know if you could use ,lets say an icecap ballast on a aqualight pro, or it must be a coralife ballast.
 
H

Hirobo

njstillwell said:
Ballast are external and they are lighting my bulbs fine i just didnt know if you could use ,lets say an icecap ballast on a aqualight pro, or it must be a coralife ballast.
Click to expand...

you can use any ballast you want brotha
 
Y

ynotme4886

As long as the input plugs from the fixture match the output plugs from the ballast you should be fine.

Most ballasts are now a universal type fitting....no company wants to miss out on the replacement market and wants their ballast to be usable in as many applications as possible
 
D

DaveK

To answer the original question.

Electronic ballasts either work or they don't. They usually don't fail half way. So as long as the ballast is firing the lamps, it can be considered ok.

Coil and core ballasts are not quite the same. Since they usually have a starting capacitor and a transformer, they can be more prone to a partial failure. However, if it's firing the bulbs and doesn't look or smell obviously bunt out, you may consider it ok.

If in doubt, try another bulb first. It the problem goes away, it's the original bulb, if not it's the ballast.
 
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