Why does metal halide bulb appear green?

[F357]

I have a 70w metal halide floodlight outside my shop. I just bought a new bulb for it, supposed to be 4000k color temp. The light it is putting out looks very green, like an old mercury vapor bulb. There are some other 250w lights and the color looks terrible in comparison.

Is there something wrong with this bulb or my fixture? Or maybe the bulb just needs to break in a little bit? 4000k should be a mostly white, slightly warm yellow color, right?

 

[Elvenhome21]

IF its truly a metal halide bulb with the correct transformer it should burn white within the first 20 minutes of the first startup of the bulbs life. After that it should burn white within prob 1-2 min of startup. Ive only dealt with those small 70 watt bulbs once at a bank and those seemed to be a tad yellow for the warmup but pure white after a min or 2. never seen MH burn green unless the bulb is bad, but thats from the arc not lighting.

 

[markietas]

They recently put all new bulbs in the MH high bay fixtures at my work ( 50+ 400w fixtures ) and the new bulbs had a very noticeable green tint for quite a while, at lest a month till they returned to a white color.

So going by that experience I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Red Box]

Bad transformer will cause this. Does it hum? Also a sign of weak transformer. ( windings loose from bad enamel. )

 

[Norcal]

What brand of lamp, and did you buy a mercury lamp rather then a metal halide lamp? Although MH lamps smaller then 175 watts are pulse start so that is not likely, older probe start MH ballasts will operate/are suitible for the same wattage mercury vapor lamps.