Fluorescent Lighting Problem

[mpost]

Hey folks,

I installed 4 new fluorescent light fixtures over the weekend and I'm having a problem with them not working. Here's what I have:

I started out with 2 incandescent light fixtures that share a switch on a 15amp circuit.

I installed junction boxes and two fluorescent light fixtures at each incandescent location.

The first fixture I replaced with two 2 bulb 32watt T8s fixtures. Tested it out and everything worked fine.

Sunday, I worked on the second fixture. I installed two 6 bulb 32 watt T8s.

When I first turned them all on at the switch, all the lights came on fine. A few minutes later, the two 2 bulb fixtures went off. Now the 2 lamp fixtures won't come back on, but the two 6 lamp fixtures work fine.

I should mention that the wiring goes from the switch, to the two 6 lamp fixtures, then back to the two 2 lamp fixtures.

How should I troubleshoot? I checked all the connections I made. Redid most of them. I tried connecting only one of the 2 lamp fixtures and that didn't do anything. Tonight, I'm going to try to disconnect one of the 6 lamp fixtures and see if the others will work.

Could I have too many lights on this circuit? How do I test that the last fixture is getting enough power?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[q miester]

no you dont have too many lights on circuit if you did the breaker would have tripped.
1) make sure the lamps are correctly installed in the tombstones(sockets)
2)make sure the wires from the ballast are installed in the correct tombstone and securely attached. (Refer to ballast for correct tombstone location)
3) check fixture to make sure you have Correct power to ballast and wired correctly(refer to ballast wiring diagram on ballast)
4) if still not working replace lamps with lamps from working fixture (this will let you know if lamps are bad)
5) if still not working replace ballast or fixture depends on cost
let us know how it goes

 

[mpost]

Thanks for the reply.

You are correct that I did not trip the breaker, so that seems fine.

I will check all the tombstones and ballasts. It seems weird that something like that would happen to both fixtures and all 4 bulbs, but I will check.

I will try your suggestions tonight and re-do the connections and see what happens.

Thanks.

 

[Cuda]

Having dealt with a lot of the T8's I have been stunned by the number of bad ballasts, right out of the box. G.E. seems to be the worst I've seen. Based on your description of what happened I would lean towards a bad ballast.

 

[mpost]

Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking the ballasts would be ruled out since they are brand new, but now I won't assume they are good.

 

[mpost]

I got the lights working last night. I went through all the connections again and found a bad neutral wire connection at the first junction box. Newbie mistake! From the outside it looked secure until I really started pulling on the wires. I redid a few of the connections and re-taped everything and the lights work fine now.

Thanks for the help!