Electronic Ballast Not Coming On.

[sunny747]

I have a switchable 400/250 Watt Solistech with a 250w MH in there for Veg. Twice over the past few days I have checked on my tent a few hours after lights on and the lights weren't on.

The light will begin to fire up, but it misfires. I have to hit the "reset button" on front of the ballast and then it fires up perfectly.

Anyone ever have similar troubles?

 

[Kronicle420]

Had a similar issue on my last grow, checked wiring etc an all seemed ok. I changed the orientation of the ballast to where its on its end. After that i never had the issue again. Not to say yours is the same problem but its free to try

 

[docter]

How old is the bulb?

 

[sunny747]

How old is the bulb?

Bulb is 3 weeks old... Very strange. Worked great for a while. I came home tonight and the ballast "on" light was on, but the actual MH bulb was not on. I unplugged the ballast and hot the reset switch then plugged back in and it came right on.

I'm going to try switching bulbs and hood.

 

[docter]

I personal have used a digilux and next gen ballast combos before and I also have tried hortilux bulbs with no problems. But I have heard of strange manifestations with digital ballast bulb combinations but have not experienced these for myself.Solis recommends Pulse-Start metal halides for what that's worth. I wish you the best or luck.

 

[bigsteve]

Ballasts tend to be hard on electrical systems. I had a similar problem with my 1000W ballast in my flower room. I resolved that problem when I discovered that the socket the ballast was plugged into was dead. It was fine on Tuesday and dead on Wednesday. I re-pugged it into the other socket and my problem disappeared.

Good luck, BigSteve.

 

[sunny747]

I turned the ballast on its side and all seems well the past two days... Weird.. Thx for the replies.

 

[Antman15]

Write solistek. They are very helpful and will probably offer to replace your ballast.

 

[docter]

That seems so strange cool you found it.. It sounds like kronic won the chicken dinner. Ditto on calling the manuf. I love this forum.

 

[Cannabil]

Bulb is 3 weeks old... Very strange. Worked great for a while. I came home tonight and the ballast "on" light was on, but the actual MH bulb was not on. I unplugged the ballast and hot the reset switch then plugged back in and it came right on.

I'm going to try switching bulbs and hood.

What bulb are you running? Use a hortilux in the solistek dont use them garbage bulbs especially the ones that say they are for electronic ballast including the "eye" model bulbs they wont fire correctly.

This is especially problem if you run a powerbox it throws all ballast off wack and they go into limp mode and throw misfire codes if u got a smart ballast like solistek. Im running the new solistek's right now with regular hortilux bulbs no more issues.

 

[Cannabil]

Sorry I meant the E start bulbs* from Hortilux

 

[sunny747]

Sorry I meant the E start bulbs* from Hortilux

So I should or shouldn't use eye hortilix?

 

[Cannabil]

So I should or shouldn't use eye hortilix?

Use hortilux bulbs but dont use the e start hortilux w solistek or phantom ballast especially if u have multiple ones they wont fire after thry go off

 

[VTMi'kmaq]

sunny , i may sound like an old goat stuck in a closet technology wise but id rec you go with magnetic ballasts if you can handle the heat they give off. Ive used mag mh and hps 600 cooltubes and im quite happy with the results. I mean sheeeeeit man those hortilux blues will grow a new planet! lol!

 

[VTMi'kmaq]

Use hortilux bulbs but dont use the e start hortilux w solistek or phantom ballast especially if u have multiple ones they wont fire after thry go off

I'm a firm believe that horti's need mag ballasts....just an opinion

 

[IronLunG710]

I bought a solis tek matrix 1000 once. It worked good for a week until one morning on fire up, and it literally fired up! Smoke and bad electronic buzzing and snapping sounds. Good thing I was already in that room ready to foliar feed as the lights come on! Needless to say that ballast went back. Now Im running powerbox HD1000 digital ballasts with a powerbox distribution block 220v. I will probably switch to half LED and half HID in the future but for now Im liking my digital ballasts, they're better on the power bill and perform just as good as magnetics imo.

 

[Bareback]

I bought a solis tek matrix 1000 once. It worked good for a week until one morning on fire up, and it literally fired up! Smoke and bad electronic buzzing and snapping sounds. Good thing I was already in that room ready to foliar feed as the lights come on! Needless to say that ballast went back. Now Im running powerbox HD1000 digital ballasts with a powerbox distribution block 220v. I will probably switch to half LED and half HID in the future but for now Im liking my digital ballasts, they're better on the power bill and perform just as good as magnetics imo.

I also run the power box ballast with hortilux eye. No problems great performance. But this thread is making me nervous.

 

[Full-spectrum Recklessnes]

Fk Nextgen my shit died so fast I've bad old trustees put this company to shame