Old Pc Bulb Works New One Dies After 20 Mins...

[djnrg]

Hi Everyone,

I am replacing 2 URI 96W PC bulbs (one 10k one actinic) with two 50/50 URI (actinic/10k) bulbs. The two old bulbs worked just fine - its just time to replace them. I put the new bulbs in and they both died after 20 mins. I thought it was the bulb because one went a few minutes before the other, but then the other one went. I turned them both off for a while, and once they were cool, turned them back on again, and they seemed to work. Then, they died again. Sooo, frustrated, I put the old bulbs back in, and the system has been on for a couple hours now with no problems.

I called the fish store, and they said it sounds like a ballast problem, and shooed me to a web site telling me to replace my ballasts. One of the ballasts is only a year and a half old, and the OLD bulbs work fine when I put them back in, so I'm wondering what is going on.

Anyone had a similar problem, and can suggest what may be going wrong? I find it strange that BOTH 50/50 bulbs do this, unless they came from a bad batch, and that when I put the old bulbs in, everything works fine again....

Thanks so much!

-james

 

[djnrg]

So I decided to try things again, and put in the new bulbs in case it was just a freak coincidence before. Same thing happenned - both new bulbs died after 20 mins, and now one of my 2 ballasts is dead. The old bulbs are still fine, as both will work when I switch them back and forth with my only working ballast...

So my question is still; are the bulbs still possibly bad, and did they blow the ballast? Or is that not possible, and is it more likely that both ballasts are about to go, and that is what is causing the problem with
the new bulbs dying after a short period of time?

Thanks again!

 

[djnrg]

Seriously? Nothing? 52 views and NO help?

Jeeze......anyways, for the benefit of the next person that has this issue and searches and finds my post, the issue was the ballast. It was the strangest thing - the ballast could support the old bulb, but died under the new bulb. I'm told it's because the new bulbs consume more power than the old bulbs, thus putting more strain on the ballast. Not sure if that's entirely true though, as a 96w bulb is a 96w bulb....aaanyways, I replaced the ballast and the new light worked like a charm!