No heat at all.. room stays around 70-75 degrees.. wall mounted and the surface of the ballast was barely warm of the time.. i was suprised at how cool the thing ran..

I'm stumped, sounds like it could have been the ballast.. now I'm nervous.. i dont want it to happen again after i replace it.. could it have been because it was on a timer? I had it hooked from a 120v/ 1750 watt timer into a surge protector that the ballast was plugged into.. so its unlikely to have been a surge.. the timer wasnt heavy duty, but according to the statistics, it should have been sufficient enough to use with the light.