Electrical/Lighting Gurus: MH turning on and off

[d2mini]

The HQI portion of my light unit (its an HQI/T5 combo) is randomly turning off for a couple minutes and then turning back on. Sometimes it goes off again a couple minutes later, sometimes hours later.
Any idea what would be causing this?
Problem with the ballast?
Problem with tank equipment not being on a dedicated circuit yet?
The T5's are staying lit no problem.

[d2mini]

So i was doing some google research and found some articles that say this is normal for MH bulbs, as they take at least 100hrs to burn in and my bulb does not have nearly that many hours yet. It says the bulb can flicker, change color temperature and if it flickers enough to actually go off, it then takes 5-10 minutes before it can power back on again. This is exactly what I'm experiencing.

Anyone else experience this?

[tommyb]

So i was doing some google research and found some articles that say this is normal for MH bulbs, as they take at least 100hrs to burn in and my bulb does not have nearly that many hours yet. It says the bulb can flicker, change color temperature and if it flickers enough to actually go off, it then takes 5-10 minutes before it can power back on again. This is exactly what I'm experiencing.

Anyone else experience this?


I have never had this happen. I was thinking the ballast was overheating or something.

[old salty]

Lights turning on and off is not normal. Sounds like you have a ballast issue. Is this with one single MH bulb or with several of them?

[grigsy]

MH bulbs do have a burn in period of 100 hours. Generally, during that time, they will burn into their normal Kelvin. Most of the time, you wont have flickering though.

Do you have another bulb you can test in that unit? If you get a lot of flickering or if the bulb lights but is very dim, it likely means the capacitor is getting weak or is out and needs to be replaced.