Is it my bulb or my ballast?! help decide!

Greetings all,

I am new to this forum and I apologize for my lack of contribution so far. I was very active on overgrow and during the years overgrow was thriving, so were my grows. Shortly after that site went down I packed up all my equipment and moved and never unpacked all my lights/blowers/hydrofarms/ect until a few weeks ago. Now Im ready to grow again.

I have 25 bag seed beauties under a 1000W HPS. They have been flower for 20 days with no issues. Very healthy, no light issues.

I get up today at 8:00 and head down to take a look at the girls as I always do first thing in the morning (lights should have come on at 7:00) and its DARK! WHAT!?

I immediately hook up a 400W MH in another area and transfer all the plants under it until I can diagnose this issue. Here's what I know and where I get confused-

There are 4 items running on this circuit, all plugged into a single surge protector. My Dayton fan, my 1000W HPS, and (2) 4ft shop lights my seedlings are under.

Now, first and foremost one of the 2 shop lights is now totally non-functional (fried somehow?), I plugged it in elsewhere with no luck. It was working less than 12 hours ago. As for the other shop light it is fine when the HPS is not plugged in. As soon as I try to plug the HPS in to fire it up the working shop light blinks continuous until I unplug the HPS then it comes on full power?! The dayton blower seems fine regardless of whats plugged in or where its plugged in.

Now for the most important item, the HPS. I have had it many years and it was originally acquired via a construction site. Never had any issues with it and I just replaced the bulb at the beginning of grow (cant be 300 hours on it). When I opened up the room this morning and it was "on" it glows very low with a blue hue. Same if you unplug for a few and plug it back in. Makes me think my ballast is the issue? although I cant hear any difference in its operating sounds and it didn't feel overheated at all.

Everything worked last night now with the shoplights blinking when I plug in the 1000W and it not kicking on Im very confused. Does a blown HPS bulb glow a slight blue when you try to strart it? And is it possible my 1000W ballast some fried itself and damaged my shoplight too? Maybe I had a power surge last night? although nothing else in the house was effected.

I don't have a spare 1000W bulb but I can get one this afternoon at an electrical supply store by my office. It just doesnt seem like it should be the bulb! Someone help!? Any ides?!

TheWorldIsMine

You need to plug in the 1000 watt hps on its own circuit.

That strip is preventing the other lights to work properly.


Sounds like the igniter is damaged within the ballast.

I'll take a stab at this. I believe your HPS ballast failed and fried one of the flouro's ballast through a power surge. It's possible you had an external power surge that damaged both, but I doubt it since you have a surge protector. The fact that your bulb is glowing blue is due to a small amount of power coming from the ballast. The starter gas contains mercury and will glow blue with a small amount of current. You may have to replace both ballasts, the HPS and one of the flouros. The other flouro is probably fine.
My best guess. Good luck.

Ok so upon further examination. The bulb is def blown/dead. I took apart my cool tube and pulled it all apart to get a better look. 2 major issue's-

1st Picture- Small round metal piece is "loose" in bulb and moves as you handle bulb

2nd pic- major darkening/black around "base" of glass tube. I assume both issues occured at once? Maybe a power surge from the ballast.

Im not sure what Im going to do, If I throw a new bulb in there to test the ballast is it gonna blow it also and waste another 60-80 bucks at minimum.

I don't have the funding for another HPS 1000w ballast at the moment. Might have to hook up some MH lighting and just flower with it (I happen to have a 1000W MH and (2) 400W MH laying around).

AGHHH!!! Thanks in advance for any advice?!

I would say it's your bulb. They don't always just quit when they die, they also do what you're experiencing - barely lighting up. Sounds like you may have had a power surge. Is anything else plugged in to the same circuit, that you maybe didn't think of? Something that is only on periodically, so you wouldn't really notice - coffee pot, microwave? Those are both high watt items. Better to have your light on a line all by itself.