?Switchable Ballast Broken?

So I did some searching around RIU as well as good ole' Google but have been unsuccessful at finding any relevant results so here it goes.

I have a 400w switchable ballast that I purchased new from a local shop. I have only used it for 2 grows (the second one being my current). I use MH for vegging and HPS for flowering. I am two weeks into flowering (HPS) and today I came home to check on my ladies and the light was not on even though it should have been. The ballast was making some noise like it had ignited but no light. So I unplugged everything and tried it again directly in the socket rather than through the timer, no luck. I then proceeded to remove the HPS bulb and put in the MH bulb and switched the ballast back to MH and the damn thing fired up fine.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on whether or not this is simply a bulb issue or if its a ballast issue.

Since my setup is damn near brand new I do not expect it to be the bulb but who knows.

If its a ballast issue is there anything I can do myself to fix or am I just screwed?

SOunds like its under warranty, these new digital ballasts have 5
year+ warrantees, I'd bring it back... along with the bulb and
reflector, could be any of them.

Shrubs First said:

SOunds like its under warranty, these new digital ballasts have 5
year+ warrantees, I'd bring it back... along with the bulb and
reflector, could be any of them.

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You are indeed correct it does have a 5 year warranty.

Do you think it would be alright to go ahead and finish this batch under the MH and then get it replaced?

It is the probably the bulb which should be under warranty, I went through a few cheap ones until they replaced it with a better bulb in my 1000w setup. Put you MH in for now, but get a new HPS as soon as you can. you may also want to put a few ~2700k CFL's (soft white) in there until you get your bulb back just for spectum.

SticherVA said:

It is the probably the bulb which should be under warranty, I went through a few cheap ones until they replaced it with a better bulb in my 1000w setup. Put you MH in for now, but get a new HPS as soon as you can. you may also want to put a few ~2700k CFL's (soft white) in there until you get your bulb back just for spectum.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the support. I will give it a try.