Ballast Overheated

[kully]

My Cannalight 600 watt ballast cut out this morning.I pluged it out let it cool down and it started up again.
The temp in the room at the ballast stays at about 80f(cant get it any lower).
Im a bit worried about this now being a fire hazard,its always been pretty warm to the touch,It has a built in fuse which screws into the side of it and another one in the plug,plus its pluged into a surge protector.

Its about a year old,how often should they be replaced?
Has anyone ever heard of this happening before,i know a lot of people on here know about ballasts,am i wrong about the overheating part?.

kully Reviewed by kully on 07-02-2007. Ballast Overheated My Cannalight 600 watt ballast cut out this morning.I pluged it out let it cool down and it started up again. The temp in the room at the ballast stays at about 80f(cant get it any lower). Im a bit worried about this now being a fire hazard,its always been pretty warm to the touch,It has a built in fuse which screws into the side of it and another one in the plug,plus its pluged into a surge protector. Its about a year old,how often should they be replaced? Has anyone ever heard of this Rating: 5

[rhizome]

More likely that you had a voltage fluctuation- If the lamp arc is broken , the ballast will not re-fire until it's cooled. Happens all the time.

If you're not there when it happens, the ballast just re-fires after about 20 minutes.

As a rule, ballasts are damn reliable- tho hps caps and ignitors will fail as the ballast ages.

I've never seen a " Cannalight" brand, but rarely does a ballast fail after just one year.

If you're scared of the ballast overheating, point a fan at it.

[xcrispi]

Rhizome - Could voltage flux be the problem I've been having w/ cap -15 min hotstart relays not working properly too ? I've sent em back to John at cap and they run em for days w/o any probs. Every now and then 1 will fail and have to be unplugged and reset ?

We have 240 v into a greenair Lt4 = 4 - 110 v 10 amps ea. out .
Peace man
Crispi :jointsmile:

[rhizome]

Hmm...

If the voltage goes low enough to break arc, but not low enough to reset the timer chip on the relay, I could see them misbehaving.

Figure the board prob runs low-voltage 5-20v and uses a timer chip to close a 110 relay- board power supply is going to deal better w/ flux than the arc, so it might be that your hot-starts aren't tripping all the way.

You in Cali?

'cause if you are, your voltage gets all kinds of wacky this time of year... people and their air conditioners.


I don't know, man... IANAEE ( I am not an electrical engineer), but it seems worth investigation.

[rhizome]

We have 240 v into a greenair Lt4 = 4 - 110 v 10 amps ea. out .
Peace man
Crispi :jointsmile:

Nice.

[xcrispi]

Sorry for the hi-jack Kully ,
Rhiz. I'm not in cali. , but we have probs. w/ brownouts and all kindsa B/S . So chip in relay is able to sense drop like the transfer switch on our nat. gas gen . Senses pole -v. drop and kills the pole . We've had enough brownouts here consecutively to fry the coils in our gens. transfer switch . It sucks
Thanx
Crispi :jointsmile:

[rhizome]

Not sure that it " senses" v drop-

Timer chip begins cycle @ ( threshold voltage achieved), closes NO relay after delay. Relay remains closed until voltage drops below threshold, @ which point it opens.

But if voltage never goes below threshold, relay remains closed, ballast remains powered, - no reset.

If yer getting brownouts, you could def be hitting points where voltage is low enough to break arc, but not low enough to release relay. Relay would seem to have failed.

But again, IANAEE.

Wish I could offer more than speculation.

[kully]

Its funny you should mention voltage fluctuations rhizome,at the time it happened there was a clothes washing machine on in another part of the house,maybe when it switched onto its spin cycle it sent a surge or something,
The ballast has been running fine now for the last 6 hours.

[rhizome]

Kool- there's a cheap fix.

Best of luck!