Lighting Problem

[hockey2pt0]

I've been trying to fix these lights in a garage. They are 4 T8s wired together and controlled by 2 3-way switches before the wire gets to the lights. The switches don't turn on the lights and I've replaced them and they still don't control the lights. All of the wires coming off of the switch is hot even if the switch is off including the two travelers. The lights are also constantly hot and so are the wires in the fixture but the lights still don't turn on. Is this an issue with the bulbs, which I don't think because all of the lights don't work or is it a ballast issue? Thanks, any help is appreciated.

 

[BFBOB]

Your switches are wired wrong (or defective). unwire them and use an ohmmeter or continuity tester to find out what's really happening. You're smarter than the average bear or you wouldn't know the term "traveler". Find out for sure which terminal on each switch is the common, and which two are the travellers. Make sure each the travellers on each switch connect only to one of the travellers on the other switch. Then, if the problem persists, it must be that hot is routed to the lights, then to one of the commons, but it's shorted to ground somewhere.
Another diagnostic is making sure you know which is the hot wire--the one coming straight from the breaker box. A DVM won't tell you that; rig a test lamp with about a 60 -100W bulb. If it lights, between a neutral or ground and a suspect wire, that wire is actually hot, not just reading volts through some other device.
It's tricky -- good luck.

 

[Gary S]

If your switch wires are hot all the time, they are wired wrong. If you have power to the lights and they aren't lighting, you are missing the common.

 

[hockey2pt0]

Thanks for the replies. I'll have to check the switches but I'm certain I wired them right. As for the lights, the thing that I don't understand is that they are constantly hot. I used a non contact volt tester on the light sockets that hold the tubes and even they are hot but don't turn on the tubes. I don't think this would be such a weird thing, it is wired a simple way- power to the switch to the switch to the lights so I don't think I wired the switches wrong since it is a simple, to me at least, circuit.
Gary- do you mean the common on the switches or the neutrals?

 

[aandpdan]

Don't use your non contact tester for troubleshooting, they are not reliable.

Get a voltmeter and check to see if you have 120 vac to the ballast. Just measure the feed to the ballast, the line side.

Do not measure the output (tube) side.

Make sure the lights are wired as per the ballast instructions and that the wires are tight in the tombstones, they can fall out. If all looks good it's probably the ballast.

 

[hockey2pt0]

Don't use your non contact tester for troubleshooting, they are not reliable.

Get a voltmeter and check to see if you have 120 vac to the ballast. Just measure the feed to the ballast, the line side.

Do not measure the output (tube) side.

Make sure the lights are wired as per the ballast instructions and that the wires are tight in the tombstones, they can fall out. If all looks good it's probably the ballast.

Would one bad ballast effect the remaining lights?

 

[pattenp]

If you have 4 individual T8 fixtures and none of them work then you have your wires/switches to the fixtures wired wrong. A bad ballast in one fixture would not cause the others not to light. Are these lights an existing install that stop working or a new install that you can't get to work?
Is this like your switch arrangement?

 

[hockey2pt0]

If you have 4 individual T8 fixtures and none of them work then you have your wires/switches to the fixtures wired wrong. A bad ballast in one fixture would not cause the others not to light. Are these lights an existing install that stop working or a new install that you can't get to work?
Is this like your switch arrangement?

I didn't wire the lights, they were what I was trying to fix. The diagram is how I wired the switches and how they were wired before. I replaced the old switches with new ones and they still don't work. I might try to wire it with a single pole switch and 2 wire and see if that changes anything.

 

[6t7gto]

I would put a male plug pigtail on each of the lights and plug them into an extension cord.
This would tell you if the lights are good.

 

[1grnlwn]

Is it possible that the ballasts are not 120v ballasts. They make many different ballasts for different input voltages. Try isolating one fixture at a time with a plug in cord to see if individual fix will work. Try swapping some lamps.

 

[aandpdan]

I misunderstood your earlier post. I assumed one fixture with 4 bulbs and a 4 lamp ballast.

Is it individual fixtures?

 

[hockey2pt0]

I misunderstood your earlier post. I assumed one fixture with 4 bulbs and a 4 lamp ballast.

Is it individual fixtures?

Sorry, there are 4 individual 2 lamp fixtures.
I tried the plug method and that worked on the lights. So now I think it is an issue with the wiring before the switches.

 

[6t7gto]

Whomever did the wiring for the switches may have picked up the neutral instead of the hot and the 3 ways are wired incorrectly.

 

[nehog]

Make sure your neutral is not open...

 

[hockey2pt0]

Well, I got it working after removing the feed from the circuit and making a branch circuit out of a less used one. I believe that somewhere between the garage and panel the neutral was switched and made hot which is what was messing everything up.