IceCap 430 Ballast Help

[stonecold]

My VHO bulbs were on about an hour and then I turned if off to show a fellow reefer the difference with the actinics off. When I turned it back on it would not lit. It blinked then shuts off. I thought that it may be a problem with the ballast so I bought a new ballast and it did the same thing.

Please advise what could be wrong and how to fix this issue.

Thank you!!

[doublejesus]

sounds to me like you either got a loose connection or a bad bulb. have you checked both ends of each bulb? and does each bulb flash when starting?

[stonecold]

I've wired the ballast to fire 4-110watts bulbs. Just checked for connections and all seemed to be in tact. However, only 2 of the 3 bulbs "flash" when turning the ballast on. Will get new bulbs tomorrow and hopefully this will fix the problem.

[JamesJR]

You should not be trying to wire 4 110 watt bulbs with an ice cap 430. They are not designed to push that much power. You need an ice-cap 660 ballast.

I hope you kept your ballast as they might just need a fuse replacement. Right next to where the wiring harness plugs in you will see a round port and just take a flat head screwdriver and unscrew it.

As mentioned above make sure that you wired it properly and don't have any salt creep getting in the bulbs.

[doublejesus]

i'm not really familiar with vhos, how long is each of your bulbs? It says in the manual for the 430s that you can only have X feet total of bulbs. I have 2 Icecap 660s running 3 80w 5' bulbs each and another 430 running 2 more of them cause that's the most they can handle. your ballast likely can't handle the load of all those bulbs.