Light takes up to three hours to fire

[DrOfDank]

Lately, I've noticed it's taking hours to fire the bulb (1,000W Super HPS) up. Hours. My mechanical timer is set to have them come on at 7:30, but last night they came on at close to 10:30. I checked the timer, and it moved past the set time, so the bulb should have fired. The bulb is about two months old, the ballast is a generic ballast that's about 1 1/2 years old. I unplugged it for five minutes, thinking it might have taken a surge, so I reset it. Any thoughts?

 

[Gadfly]

Test the timer manually by spinning the dial around with your hand while it's plugged into something. If things click on/off at the right points it's likely not the timer. When I've had timers crap out on me in the past it started with the timer becoming less and less accurate.

Testing everything else is easy, plug it in without the timer. It should fire up immediately.

 

[DrOfDank]

Thank you, sir.

 

[c526]

magnetic or digital??

 

[Hosebomber]

Remember that most ballast now have a internal timer (usually 15 min) before it will attempt to fire after being turned off. This is a safety feature to prevent hot starts... aka fires.

 

[Gadfly]

^^^
Another great point. Most of my equipment is at least 5 years old ballast/light wise. Things have come a long way.

 

[DrOfDank]

It's digital. It's a Chinese-made iPower.

 

[Highpotanoose]

Hey just a thought and didn't see it mentioned but did you make sure that your timer is putting out power when it initially went to ON mode
I know you said it was past it's time to turn on,and then eventually it did come on but did you plug another device or check it with a meter I have seen contacts in timers wear out contacts then arc for awhile till they arc together or fail
Good luck

 

[Highpotanoose]

If it is the plastic type that plug into the wall that come with the light it is quite possible your contacts are wearing out under the heavy ltg. load, those really aren't the most reliable

 

[DrOfDank]

If it is the plastic type that plug into the wall that come with the light it is quite possible your contacts are wearing out under the heavy ltg. load, those really aren't the most reliable

Yes, it is the plastic kind. I bought it at Radio Shack. I did test it on a desk lamp, ran it through the cycle a few times at it lit right up. I did set it to come on a couple hours early, as the girls haven't been getting 12 hours, and forgot to check when it was supposed to come on. When I finally remembered, it was an hour later than the time they were scheduled to come on, and they were on. It's weird. I'll replace the cheap timer and see if that works. Thanks.

 

[Redlan]

I'm not familiar with is problem... But my guess would be your ballast..... Cheap Chinese is cheap for a reason..... Buy Japanese lol. American products generally suck too.

 

[4fingerlidday]

try another lamp, and also when you remove the lamp check inside the porcelain base and ensure that the nipple at the very bottom is sticking out enough to make good contact with the lamp,I've seen this happen allot out in the field.good luck

 

[DrOfDank]

Thanks for all the great advice y'all. I got it working. I'm not sure what exactly did the trick, but I'm thinking it was the third time I unplugged it to reset it - I actually left it unplugged for a full five minutes. lol