Hi-bay lighting

[warthog]

I have 2 high bay lights in my garage but one has recently stopped working. They are round 16 inch 400w metal halide lights and instead of warming up, one just glows blue, while the other works fine. It isn't the bulb, because I put the suspect bulb in the other fixture and it lights fine.

I'm assuming the fixture needs to be replaced, but I thought I'd fish for some guidance here since there is a lot of good info. Any ideas on how to fix the problem or at least identify exactly what it is before I invest in a new fixture?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Abodyracer]

Bad Ballast. I'd replace the fixture.

 

[KnacK]

Typcially its either the ballast or the lamp. Since you swapped lamps, its time for a ballast. Might want to hunt on eBay as that is where I found my 1k watt fixtures with lamps for about $25.00 each. I bought 6 but there were some busted housings so I could only make 4 lamps.

But man I love my hi-bay lights.

 

[iknownothing]

If you could, I would replace them with T8HO high bays. Way better light, cheaper to run, no warm up time, can be turned on and off with no waiting, etc. etc. I bought 6 lamp T8s for my shop for $100 each, discontinued model. Worth every penny IMHO.

 

[warthog]

Thanks for the replies. I do like a good ebay hunt and it looks like that's where I'll be headed.

T8HO sounds interesting too, I'll have to do some searching and educate myself on that...

 

[chad pickens]

Good luck hunting.The best place i found on ebay is sun lighting thats where I got my low bays he gives a warranty and has good deals.On a side note I had fluorescents before my metal halides I think the metal halides give colors much more natural look.

 

[warthog]

In my research I found an interesting read that I thought I would share in case it helps anyone else...

http://www.aboutlightingcontrols.org/education/papers/high-low-bay.shtml

 

[warthog]

OK, so I have a new ballast, but I'm not sure how to make the wiring connections. Old ballast, standard 3 wires A/C 120v - 2 hot, 1 ground probably about 12 ga wire.

But the new ballast has 1 green wire and 5 white wires??? And they are all smaller, maybe 18 ga. Obviously the green is the ground, but what do I do with the 5 white wires? Just pick 2?

 

[chad pickens]

look at the wires closely my ballasts are multi tap(for different voltages). In small print it should have writing on the wires saying what voltage each wire is for

 

[warthog]

look at the wires closely my ballasts are multi tap(for different voltages). In small print it should have writing on the wires saying what voltage each wire is for

That's exactly it - thanks!