So I'm standing in my grow room. I hear a pop. Look over and see literal smoke and flames shooting out of my ballast. I grabbed the first cord I could find and yanked it out. It was the power cord from the ballast to the light. Fires still persisted. Pulled the power cord to the ballast out of the wall and it cooled off. Needless to say we would have had a house fire had I not been standing there when it happened. I have the ballast mounted the wall well off the ground. I dont let crap build up on the fan or vents. It wasn't hot, never acted weird. It has one full grow on it. Was set to 600 watts with a 600 watt bulb. What gives. Did I do some sorta newbie mistake? Any input would helpful. Maybe I bought a cheap ass ballast and that's what you get? ipower.. ul listed.
There is soot and nastiness throughout the ballast. The male plug on the tube took little to no damage. I hooked up my 400watt ballast and light to it and no issues. The whole incident was less than 30 seconds. Being I'm not in that room much I feel very lucky I'm not calling in on our fire insurance.
