Metal grow cabinet shocks while HPS is starting up.

If everything you said is correct then I would say yes. Without personally inspecting all lconnections and components I cannot be definite whaat the problem is. But static electricity is most likely the culprit. The cabinet seems to be acting like a capacitor. A capacitor is basically a battery is stores electricity then discharges this electricity when needed. The cab when closed, meaning all air is kept inside the room which may have high humidity, is building the static charge. could be somehow drawing power from the light. Electricity sometimes has a mind of its own. Just be sure to check all wires and everything yourself. never I repeat never take another persons word when troubleshooting. Untill you see it with your own eyes dont believe it. This is just advice from my own personal experiences.

danksmoker77 said:

If everything you said is correct then I would say yes. Without personally inspecting all lconnections and components I cannot be definite whaat the problem is. But static electricity is most likely the culprit. The cabinet seems to be acting like a capacitor. A capacitor is basically a battery is stores electricity then discharges this electricity when needed. The cab when closed, meaning all air is kept inside the room which may have high humidity, is building the static charge. could be somehow drawing power from the light. Electricity sometimes has a mind of its own. Just be sure to check all wires and everything yourself. never I repeat never take another persons word when troubleshooting. Untill you see it with your own eyes dont believe it. This is just advice from my own personal experiences.

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kiss-ass

Many, many thanks. I think you've given me a good understanding as to what may be going on inside the cabinet. He is a hydro man, so he does have pretty high humidity in there. Hopefully I will be able to get over there monday and take a look at things.

If it's from lack of a ground, it's not static. If it is static, it's not generated by trapped air. If this shocking is repeatable during bulb starts, it's not static. Also dry air does better at generating static I believe, then if there's fine sand blowing against it in the wind.. if this metal thing's outside, that'll generate a charge... but this doesn't seem like static. Get the thing grounded first before you go "whoopsie fuck, looks like there's nothing I can do cause it's a natural zap"

i would also like to know where the ballast is placed. is it very close to the metal room? is it touching the metal room. Not that this is incorrect design its just a thought. The transformer inside the BALLAST GENERATES AN ELECTRICAL FIELD. Its possible this field is making its way to the cab. I am so interestd in figuring this one out.

Fuzzotany said:

if this metal thing's outside, that'll generate a charge... but this doesn't seem like static. Get the thing grounded first before you go "whoopsie fuck, looks like there's nothing I can do cause it's a natural zap"

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It's in a garage on a concrete floor. I'll make sure to get the light grounded when I go over there, in addition to checking all components of the ballast for continuity to ground. Thanks for the input.

danksmoker77 said:

i would also like to know where the ballast is placed. is it very close to the metal room? is it touching the metal room. Not that this is incorrect design its just a thought. The transformer inside the BALLAST GENERATES AN ELECTRICAL FIELD. Its possible this field is making its way to the cab. I am so interestd in figuring this one out.

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The light is similar to this:




It is suspended from the top of the cabinet by chains. AFAIK there is no insulation between the chains and the metal cabinet.

I wouldn't use that cabinet until I personally inspected every square inch of electrical cable. Electrical fires could happen easily with the problem's you've listed. Any solutions or speculations as to what is going wrong shouldn't be trusted until you do a very detailed over look of your setup.

hey you get that light fixed or what?

My phone finally works again!

I had a minor natural disaster occur a couple weeks ago, and was without phone service for 2 weeks.

Here's an update on the situation. I am even more confused now than I was before.

I checked all the ballast wiring for continuity to ground, there was none. He put a grounded plug on the light, and replaced the timer. After that, there was no shocking, but the light would not turn on. It would hum, but not light up. He put the old, ungrounded plug back on and everything worked. No shocks, and the light comes right on just has for the past few years..

So at this point, the new timer seems to have fixed or at least masked the problem. I just don't understand why.

When I inspected the ballast myself, it appeared that the insulation on the wires coming out of the transformer was a bit brittle and showing signs of heat/age. I didn't see any wire exposed through the insulation though. Everything else looked to be in excellent condition.

Any ideas?

Just to keep things interesting, MY light died a couple weeks ago. Mine was a remote ballast, and the ballast was flooded. Everything looked ok once it dried out. But it worked for one night and then quit. My light only has an igniter and a transformer, I'm guessing it's the igniter? There's 110v at the socket, but the bulb will not light. It's not a major loss, it's only one of those $20 econolights that were so popular before they sold out. I bought a 70w hps to use in the meantime. I saw a 68w cfl the other day for $15, I think I'm going to pick up one of those as well.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I just had my first nonbagseed harvest a week ago and I am pretty baked right now.

whoa not quite sure what your sayin, but i did just take a big bong hit sooo...

But anyhow, I think what your sayin is the problem is fixed and it was just the timer. But, I thought we tried using the light without the timer and it still wouldn't work? And it dosen't make sense that it wouldn't work with a grounded plug. Something is fishy. And when you said, with the timer and grounded plug, it just hummed. My question is what you did next? Did you say thats when you cahnged back to ungrounded plug and put another new timer on?

As for your light man sorry to hear about the flood. But always try to keep any electrical connections at least waist high in the future.

And I would not be surprised if it is never known for sure what was causing the problem. Many times I have restored a machine to working order and was not really sure what the fix was. Sometimes just making new connections and moving somw wires around does the trick. But for now I will chalk this one up to the timer.

Well congrats on gettin the light up and runnin I knew you could do it!!!!!

I'll try to explain myself a little better. When I was there, he had the old 2 prong timer and the old light cord with the ground cut off.

The next day he installed the new 3 wire plug, and a new 3 prong timer. After that, the light would hum but not turn on. He put the old 2 wire plug back on the light, and plugged it into the new 3 prong timer. Since then, everything is working as it should.

I assume the old timer was the problem, I just have no idea why the light does not work when grounded.

Anyone know if electrical tape is safe to use on the wires coming from the transformer? It gets pretty hot in there and my buddy is concerned it may be a fire risk.

Thanks for all the input, you guys have shared some pretty useful knowledge with me.

the electrical tape should be fine if the transformer gets hot enough to ignite electrical tape then wether the tape is there or not there will be issues. The tape will not be an issue. Thanks for the better explanation! Good Luck and happy growin!!!!!!

Thanks, I'll have him tape it up. It has failed to start a couple of times in the past week. I don't really think it will fix the problem, but it couldn't hurt.

He's probably just going to get a new light if he keeps having trouble. As much as I hate to admit defeat, this one has me stumped. Thanks again for all the help.