I have a 600 watt HPS light that is shutting off and turning back on in my flowering tent. Its in an air cooled reflector so it shuts off for about 5 seconds and then turns back on. This light is run with a digital ballast. Is the bulb possibly bad? I have had the light for probably a month and thought about replacing the bulb if its on its way out. I was also looking at bulbs and was not sure on which one to get if I did replace it. I am seeing a lot of them that have a color temperature of 2100k and 2700k. The one that currently have puts out 2100k at 90,000 lumens. Should I replace the bulb, and if so, what should I go with?
When the light was shutting off, the middle part was still glowing when it would turn back off. I shut the light off for a couple of minutes to allow the bulb to cool a bit better. Now it seems that the light is working like it should and is not shutting off. Is it possible that the light was just not firing properly and shutting it off for a longer period of time maybe fixed that by allowing it to cool properly?
To sfrenger and krank. Yes I figured it out. This is a year old by the way. But the actual bulb was bad. I replaced the bulb with a new bulb and that solved the problem.
Thanks Rizzo. I knew it was an old post, but what you had happening was exactly what I had happening. I just replaced the light and that seems to have fixed the problem this morning. I appreciate your response. sf.
If it is flickering and cutting out it has a bad connection or the starter in the ballast is on it's way out. Are you sure the circuit you are using is rated for 600watts, you could be overdrawing it and that will cause the ballast to cut out randomly.
Actually, I have two thousand watt lights in my room. The lights are each on their own dedicated circuit. So I plugged the ballast in question into a different circuit and it was still doing it. I rewired the connection on the light fixture end (TWICE) and it was still doing it. I had only ran two cycles on this light so I hadn't had any reason to believe it was the light. So i replaced the hps with one of my older mh bulbs and it hasn't happened so far. I won't know until the room powers down and then comes back on. This problem always seemed to happen after the bulb and ballasts had cooled off.
Well if it still continues with the new bulb I would look to the starter in the ballast, that would be my only guess if the wiring and bulb are good. They are cheap and normally just 2 wires to splice so you should be able to handle it no problem if you wired the light a few times.
I don't know anything about electronic dimmable ballasts. I would probably have to take it in somewhere. The ballast was pretty new though. I think it only had about 2 cycles on it. Lumatek seems like a good brand. Well, just checked and the light worked. Problem solved. Thanks everyone.
WAIT!!! are you guys getting fingerprints on the bulbs or mabey your outlets got burnt out ya naw I mean...
I always wipe the bulbs off with a cloth before I start them up. Also, this light fixture came into the room when I bought the ballast. I moved an old light out that I couldn't vent and brought this one in. At any rate though, the problem was the light and nothing else.
This post is old. The problem was solved over a year ago by just replacing the light bulb. The bulb burned out, so I replaced it. Problem solved.
Sorry for Necro'ing an old post but I just had a similar one today - took it to my grow shop and they tested it, seems there is a fuse for mine (600W Digi-lumen). Apparently is fairly common that's why it comes with a spare fuse in the holder, so far so good that the light is staying on. Again sorry for necro but maybe someone else has something similar one day