Question about my 70w MH JBJ

[captnmorgan02]

First off, is there any way to tell if a HQI bulb is burnt out other than putting it on another ballast? (don't have another 70w ballast around)

And second, my problem. On the 25th of august I bought a JBJ 70w MH Viper clip on light for my 10gal nano at The Hidden Reef my new favorite store. Tonight I wake up for work and the light is not on. The ballast is getting power and the ceramic endcaps(things that hold the bulb) are getting power. The sticker on the ballast says 120volts input, lamp power 90volts/70watts. When I tested everything with my test meter it's showing 190Volts at the endcaps. I'm no electrician but that doesn't seem right can anyone confirm that.

If there is a problem with the ballast and not just the bulb what should i do and how long will my corals be ok without light? 10 gal with yellow polyps, green star polyps, zoo's, xenia, and mushrooms.

Thanks in advance and sorry so long.

 

[captnmorgan02]

anyone???

 

[captnmorgan02]

well no responses but I thought I'd fill everyone in incase anyone has this light and runs into this problem. I wasn't sure how long my corals would be ok without light so I bought a pc light to use till I find out what the problem was. I called JBJ and they didn't hesitate to send me out a new bulb I faxed them my reciept and got my tracking number for the bulb about an hour later. I'll keep you posted when the bulb comes in.

 

[mladencovic]

I will try to answer though I am not really an expert (nor did I stay in the Holiday Inn ;D )

First off, is there any way to tell if a HQI bulb is burnt out other than putting it on another ballast? (don't have another 70w ballast around)
...

Not sure if you can effectively test this. You can certainly try to see the resistance of the heating elements (filaments) and if they are conductive they might be OK, but that still doesn't mean that everything is OK. Maybe the filament coating is gone or there is something wrong with contcats between filament and lamp contacts that simple test unit won't find, or the gass inside has changed.

What you could do instead is to try and test a new bulb and if that works, you have eliminated the balast as a source of problems.

... The sticker on the ballast says 120volts input, lamp power 90volts/70watts. When I tested everything with my test meter it's showing 190Volts at the endcaps. I'm no electrician but that doesn't seem right can anyone confirm that.
...

Ok, I amjust guessing here, but sticker information implies that the ballast is averaging input voltage of 120V to 90V . As far as I understand ballasts for PC, the averaging of voltage is what is expected of them (straightening waveform). Now, judging by your measured voltage, is it possible that it would look like the ballast is averaging 220V. Now comes a stupid question. Is it possible that the outlet your ballast is plugged in, is supplying 220V instead of 110? Some heavy appliences sometimes use that (owns, ACs etc) Did you check your outlet?

The other possibility is that this voltage you are measuring is really just a firing and not operating voltage for the fluerescent bulb, but I am not an expert there.

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10 gal with yellow polyps, green star polyps, zoo's, xenia, and mushrooms.
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These are all low light requiring softies, and can certainly be a several days without full light.