T5-ho

[mastech08]

I just bought some t5-ho 4 bulb light fixtures at home depot, it has 4 wires and can be wired for 2 switches to operate 2 or 4 bulbs. I want all 4 bulbs to come on using 1 switch. It has green- ground, black- hot, white- neutral and a grey/red ?!?! Should the grey/red wire be wired to the black or white??

Thanks!

 

[pattenp]

Yes. Red is hot, grey is neutral.

 

[mastech08]

The wire is grey with red dots on it would that make it a neutral?

 

[1233user]

The grey/red, and the black wire from the light gets wired to the black (hot) wire if you want all the bulbs to come on with 1 switch. You will have 2 wires to the hot, 1 to the neutral, and 1 to the ground.

 

[BJ42LX]

I agree with 1233user. Grey/red is the other hot.

Was there an installation guide in/on the box?

Got a link to the lights?

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Ballast look like this?

 

[2ManyProjects]

I just bought some t5-ho 4 bulb light fixtures at home depot, it has 4 wires and can be wired for 2 switches to operate 2 or 4 bulbs. I want all 4 bulbs to come on using 1 switch. It has green- ground, black- hot, white- neutral and a grey/red ?!?! Should the grey/red wire be wired to the black or white??

 

[mastech08]

It would be nice if there were directions, There is a diagram on the back of the fixture and it shows the grey red wire connected to the white wire. but everyone I ask says to connect it to the black wire, and some says it doesn't matter??

 

[nehog]

... There is a diagram on the back of the fixture and it shows the grey red wire connected to the white wire....

Post an image of that diagram.

 

[1233user]

There should be a wiring diagram right on the ballast

 

[mastech08]

Diagram on the ballast says to connect the grey red wire to neutral or any hot. So I guess it really doesn't matter. I went ahead and started wiring them up and put the grey red wire with the black, we will see. Know I'm just waited on the bulbs to get in that I ordered.

 

[nehog]

Diagram on the ballast says to connect the grey red wire to neutral or any hot. ...

And that picture I asked you to post? I'll bet dollars to donuts it doesn't say "connect to neutral or any hot."

 

[Charles (in GA)]

If you are really not sure, call the manufacturer of the ballast, they will be quite helpful. Better than toasting something.

Charles

 

[mooseeater19]

What is the brand name and model # of the fixture?

 

[mastech08]

Lithonia Lighting 4-Light T5 White High Output Fluorescent High Bay, Model # IBC 454 MV
I took off the ballast cover to see a diagram on the ballast and the diagram showed the grey red going to the white, says below the diagram is says connect to neutral or any hot. I Don't know how to put pics on here from my phone or I would have

 

[mooseeater19]

If you go to the Home Depot web site , in the Q &A section of this fixture the wiring diagrams are discussed (same as wiring diagram in above post by Charles(from GA) The grey/red wire appears to be the switch leg for the second pair of tubes and just needs an amperage signal to turn on. Personally I would hook it to the switched hot wire.

 

[mastech08]

I got the bulbs in and boy are they are bright

 

[mooseeater19]

I have a couple 6 lamp fixtures ,330 watts each ,ya they are amazing. Great color rendition as well.

 

[THE TECH]

How did you end up wiring them? I just want them wired as from the factory with all on or all off.

 

[THE TECH]

 

[Charles (in GA)]

The lighter printing in the pic above is not positioned correctly. Shift the lettering to the left a little to line up the "Christmas tree" ground symbols. This ballast is different, it splits the neutral into two parts, which combined would be wirenutted to the incoming neutral to make all bulbs come on at once. The ballast I showed further up, has two hot inputs and one neutral. Problem is with the one I showed, the two hots had to be off the same bus bar, and could easily be wired with separate circuits off opposing sides of the bus, which keep the ballast from working. Having a split neutral to either switch or wirenut together eliminates this problem.

Charles

 

[THE TECH]

I'm still confused. I figured the install would be simple given that there are only three wires that need connecting (unless I need to modify something on the wiring).

I called Lithonia and of course their tech line goes straight to a voicemail and no one has called back yet.

Is there anything weird about this setup that the lights won't come on unless all 4 bulbs are in?

 

[pattenp]

What do you find confusing? The single circuit all on diagram on the box shows (white to white) , (black and grey/red to black).

All the lamps need to be installed.

 

[THE TECH]

Yeah that's what I thought as well so I guess I may have a bad unit since mine will not power up.

 

[pattenp]

Have you tried one of the other fixtures?

 

[THE TECH]

I bought two but have only opened this one so far.

 

[pattenp]

I don't want to insult your intelligence, but did you check all the connections and made sure you have power? Make sure the ground is also connected.

 

[THE TECH]

Checked the connections and the outlet has power.

 

[pattenp]

Can you check that power is getting through the mini connection plug to the ballast?

 

[THE TECH]

Checked the connector and power is going through.

Just opened the second one and connected it and it works fine. Must have gotten a bad one.

 

[pattenp]

Well at least you know you wired it correctly. The odds are slim that you would get a bad unit. It must have been your bad luck day.

 

[THE TECH]

Lithonia called me back this morning and verified the wiring and I had it correct. I asked them if there was any configuration the bulbs needed to be in for the unit to come on and they said there wasn't. At this point though I have yet to have the bulbs in unit the same way at any given time (I was only using two bulbs in the unit to make sure it was working before hanging the unit). So I'm tempted to try one more time to see if bulbs have to be in certain positions on the unit before they will light. I know this is prob not an issue but if you think the odds are low that this unit has an issue, then I would like to try and figure out if there's something that I'm missing.

 

[pattenp]

I assume there are 2 ballast so you need to have at least the 3 lamps installed that are powered by the one same ballast. Sorry I'm getting mixed up with the OP. Are your fixtures a 6 lamp?

Edit: I'm un-confused now. You have 4 lamp. So you need at least 2 lamps in on the same ballast for it to come on. Another thing is you should install the lamps with the power off.

 

[THE TECH]

Gotcha. Therein may lie the issue. I will report back once I have the chance to try.

 

[THE TECH]

Well, that was the issue. Put the bulbs in the same positions as the other one for the test and they came on.

 

[pattenp]

Bingo... we have a winner. Simplest things can bite you in the ***.

 

[atisvt99]

Hi there,

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but the link came up in a google search for these lights... I saw them at my local home depot and was thinking about installing them into my new 3-car (attached) garage. The one pic I was able to see in this thread looked SUPER bright! My ceilings are just 11' tall... would 2 of these per bay (6 total) be too much light for my space?

Thanks for your insight!

- justin

 

[Bunk]

Justin-
I just finished up installing these fixtures in my 21x20 garage with 10ft ceilings.
I used a combination of the 4-bulb 8ft'rs and the 2-bulb 4ft'rs. I have 4 of the 4-bulb fixtures and 5 of the 2-bulb fixtures, for a total of 26 54w T5HO bulbs.
I love the level of light in there now. By no means do I think it is too much.

I think you may want to add a 4ft'r on the end of each of the 8ft'rs.

 

[atisvt99]

Bunk, thanks for the note! Would you happen to have a pic or two to share? Sounds like you need sun glasses in that space!! :-D

Thanks again...

 

[Bunk]

Yeah sure, no problem, I'll take a picture or two tonight and post them.