can I unplug my ballast from the wall until I get a timer

I don't have a timer right now for my ballast and I'm just unplugging it from the wall when I need to use it. I unplugged it earlier and when I went to plug it back in the bulb never lit up so I don't think it's blown but it might be.

What do you think happened to my bulb? Does unplugging the ballast from the wall like that damage it in any way?

Probably nothing wrong with the bulb, most ballasts have a safety errr maybe the light does anyways it wont fire when its hot, let it cool down and repeat-however I heard going from cold to hot (unplugged to plugged) causes the bulb life to decrease

How long did you wait? Most ballasts have a soft start feature which protects against restarting bulbs on and off quickly, because this will damage them. If you are running it for 12 hours then unplugging for 12 then you have no worries. Timers are cheap at any home improvement store for like 15 bucks.

im not sure why it didnt come back on unless you literally unplugged it and plugged it right back in. Some ballasts have a safety feature in which it wont power on the bulb until its been off for a certain amount of time. One of my ballasts has this feature (i have two).

I don't use a timer either. i manually plug and unplug my lights daily. theres nothing wrong with that.

there IS something wrong with frequently turning on and off your light. (it causes spikes in electricity usage & does shorten the lifespan of your bulb) so its not a good idea to plug/unplug your unless its to start or finish a cycle (12 to 18 hrs mattering on what stage of growth you're in).

Oh alright, that makes me feel better, I thought it was either a screw up on my end or a faulty bulb.

I just went to try it out again since it's cooled down a bit and it worked perfectly, thank you for the information, now I won't be freaking out every time it doesn't start up haha

and if you wanna know why it was still hot, I had to turn it on after only about 30 mintues of cool down time because I'm getting the correct fan speed/temperature ratio going

MountainManGanjaGrower said:

Oh alright, that makes me feel better, I thought it was either a screw up on my end or a faulty bulb.

I just went to try it out again since it's cooled down a bit and it worked perfectly, thank you for the information, now I won't be freaking out every time it doesn't start up haha

and if you wanna know why it was still hot, I had to turn it on after only about 30 mintues of cool down time because I'm getting the correct fan speed/temperature ratio going

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i see. also as another tip. if you should happen to blow a fuse or overload the circuit (and power is suddenly lost to your grow room) unplug your equipment before you reset the circuit!