Wiring Problem

[jburke30]

Greetings All,

 

I'm trying to build a custom hood for my tank that will utilize all the standard flourescent bulbs that I purchased (3 in all) while experimenting with lighting in my tank (this was before I realized that 1 standard flourescent light wasn't nearly enough anyway). So now that I have these three 15 watt bulbs I thought I would scavenge my current single bulb hood, and buy the equipment to build a hood that uses all three (so I'll have 45 watts on my 10 gallon which should be enough for the coral that I want to add - Green star polyp, moon coral, sea mat, and mushrooms).

 

So I went over to Home Depot tonight and bought a 2x 15-20 watt quick start ballast, some wire connectors, wire, and standard flourescent light sockets. I wired it up to 1 bulb as a test, and the light doesn't light up completely. It seems to light up about half way then flutter a bit. I read on the net that something like this might happen if the setup doesn't have a good ground, and I'm not sure that mine does.

 

So my question is, is it really the ground causing my issue (and not the wrong ballast for my bulbs), and if it is how do I get a good ground on the ballast without a metal reflector hood or wiring a line to the socket? Or does this setup need a starter (I bought one, but I'm not sure how to wire it with this ballast)?

 

Any help will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Jason

[flaunt]

not sure about this so don't take my word for it, but i *think* you might need to hook up two bulbs to the ballast before it will work right.  it has something to do with the wiring inside the ballast.  try it and maybe it will help.  also make sure that all of your connections to the bulb are good, because that could cause some fluttering of the light.  be careful though  i got 120V to the hand for about 5-10 seconds when i was screwing around with wiring my lights and it's something i wouldn't want to do again!  if you think it's a grounding problem instead, get flat metal plate and put it in between the bottom of the ballast and the surface to which it is mounted.  as far as whether you need a starter, there should be a diagram either on the ballast or with the ballast documentation.  if it doesn't show a starter in the wiring diagram then you don't need one.  i'm not sure about quick-start ballasts.

[tlyee63]

If you have a regular  ballast you need to have both bulbs running ,the power basically runs from one bulb to the other,if you have an electronic ballast 2x28 you can run one or both bulb at the same time at full intensity

I run pc for my nano 2 x32 smart lights and have to independent ballast but,regular bulbs have electroniv ballast aval

[jburke30]

Hey Guys,

 

Thanks for the input. I was wondering if I need

both bulbs attached (it's not an electronic ballast).

I'll give that a try.

 

Thanks!

 

Jason

[lxl John lxl]

I had this same problem when I recently replaced the ballast on my 25 gallon tall. I assumed that the wire pairs were together because they went to a single bulb. As it turned out, this was NOT the case, the pos were paired together, as are the negs. You can apparently hook it up with both negatives on one bulb and it will work. Also you can hook up both positives to a bulb and it works as well. Either way, you end up with bulbls that flicker and give off as much light as your typical nightlite! In the end what saved me was the age-old advice "Read The Directions!"

Quote: from jburke30 on 11:41 pm on May 16, 2002[br]Greetings All,

 

I'm trying to build a custom hood for my tank that will utilize all the standard flourescent bulbs that I purchased (3 in all) while experimenting with lighting in my tank (this was before I realized that 1 standard flourescent light wasn't nearly enough anyway). So now that I have these three 15 watt bulbs I thought I would scavenge my current single bulb hood, and buy the equipment to build a hood that uses all three (so I'll have 45 watts on my 10 gallon which should be enough for the coral that I want to add - Green star polyp, moon coral, sea mat, and mushrooms).

 

So I went over to Home Depot tonight and bought a 2x 15-20 watt quick start ballast, some wire connectors, wire, and standard flourescent light sockets. I wired it up to 1 bulb as a test, and the light doesn't light up completely. It seems to light up about half way then flutter a bit. I read on the net that something like this might happen if the setup doesn't have a good ground, and I'm not sure that mine does.

 

So my question is, is it really the ground causing my issue (and not the wrong ballast for my bulbs), and if it is how do I get a good ground on the ballast without a metal reflector hood or wiring a line to the socket? Or does this setup need a starter (I bought one, but I'm not sure how to wire it with this ballast)?

 

Any help will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Jason

[jburke30]

Quote: from lxl John lxl on 5:58 pm on May 23, 2002[br]I had this same problem when I recently replaced the ballast on my 25 gallon tall. I assumed that the wire pairs were together because they went to a single bulb. As it turned out, this was NOT the case, the pos were paired together, as are the negs. You can apparently hook it up with both negatives on one bulb and it will work. Also you can hook up both positives to a bulb and it works as well. Either way, you end up with bulbls that flicker and give off as much light as your typical nightlite! In the end what saved me was the age-old advice "Read The Directions!"

 

For those interested:

 

Actually the lack of a second bulb was the problem. However, in my defense the instructions on the ballast didn't mention anything about it (I guess the makes just expect people to know). Anyway, I got the ballast hooked up to two lights, and everything seems to working fine now. (thanks for the help guys).

 

Jason