Why are my VHO's not lighting?!?!??????

[Scooby Doo]

Hey guys, hopefully you guys can shed some light(phun intended) on this problem.

Here's my set up. An Icecap 660 ballast, 2 LRJ Super Actinics, and 2 LRJ Actinic Whites.

My lights will come on for about a half a second then shut down. Every once in a while, I'd come home to find the lights off(they are on a timer). This was occuring more and more frequently.

Last night, I took the canapoy off and cleaned the fluorescent bulbs. After re-installing them I couldn't get them to work. They would come on for a 1/2 second then shut off. Is my ballast gone bad?

This morning I tooked the canopy and the ballast to the garage and was able to get them to work properly. I put them back on the tank, you guessed, same problem. Well I went back a couple times between the garage and the tank. Now I could replicate the problem in the garage, but I also had more room to jiggle wires and move the ballast about.

I installed the lights one last time and same deal. I had to keep cycling the power in order for them to finally stay on. This only took me about twenty or so tries turning the power on and off.

Anyway, the bulbs are only 4 months old. Any suggestions??

Dave

[Larry M]

Dave--It sounds like a loose wire or bad connection somewhere. I would go over the system connection by connection, including the endcaps. Make sure everything is tight and making good contact. Also check the ground, and the wiring harness. It must be in there somewhere.
Good luck,


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Larry M

View a list of RC Member's websites at:
http://www.reefcentral.com/membersites.html


[This message has been edited by Larry M (edited 11-27-1999).]

[alde]

Hi Scooby,

I had the same problem with my 660 and URI tubes. I have the very same set-up that you do. With mine it was a bad connection. I did not have the end caps close enough and the prongs on the tube were not getting good contact with the end cap. You may need to clean your contacts. Just lightly clean the prongs on the tubes and the metal in the end cap with some fine sandpaper. Also make sure the tube is rotated around enough in the end caps so the prongs are going side to side.

Good luck, Al

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He who feared he would not succeed sat still.

[Larry M]

Dave--I doubt it is the ballast. They tend to either work or not. A loose connection gets worse over time as the heat created from the bad connection drives the contacts further apart. When the power is removed, the heat dissipates, the contacts go back together. It could be under a wire nut, or a bad solder joint somewhere.


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Larry M

View a list of RC Member's websites at:
http://www.reefcentral.com/membersites.html

[Tim]

I had the same problem the lose wire was at the connector that plugs into the ballast

[Scooby Doo]

I would tend to agree that I have loose wiring but I used to not have a problem and every so often I would come home and the lights would be off. The lights being off seemed to appear more and more frequent. After cleaning my bulbs last night, I was REALLY having trouble lighting them. I did check my wiring carefully and it looked good. Endcaps are relatively clean too.

It seems that this is pointing to the ballast. I'll be calling Icecap on Monday.

I will double check probably tomorrow(since I finally got the lights fired up today) to make sure the endcaps and the bulb contacts are very clean.

Dave

[This message has been edited by Scooby Doo (edited 11-27-1999).]

[sae220261]

I had the same problem with the same set-up a while ago (2 years). Took the thing apart and put back together very carefully (to make sure all good connections) several times. In the end, it came down to the bulbs being the problem. I borrowed a friends Icecap and plugged it in and his ballast with my bulbs did the same thing. I took my bulbs to his system and they did the same thing. We repalced one bulb at a time mixing with his until wwe found the bad bulb. One bulb caused the entire problem. If you have a fried or a LFS with a set-up, you might try swapping bulbs / ballasts.

[Scooby Doo]

Well, I think I figured out what's going on. One of the actinics looked a little dark at one end so I put the bulbs in my regular fluorescent garage fixture one at a time. I could light off all of 'em except that one actinic bulb.

Then I replaced the actinic with the regular fluorescent bulb in my hood and I was able to fire 'em up.

Now, until I can get a replacement set, can I use the regular fluorescent or will this screw up the ballast, bulbs, etc.??

Secondly, I'll probably go with another set of URI's. Are there better bulbs out there I should check out?

Thanks.

Dave

[Scooby Doo]

Well, I found a store open an hour away in Columbia. Went to get a replacement set.

I brought the ballast and lights with me to test at the store. All looked well. Came home and lights came on for 1/2 sec then shut off. -sigh-

Dave

[Outerbank]

Scooby,
I would definitely recheck all the wiring to the endcaps of the blue actinic bulb that you said was bad. The fact that it was dark indicates that it wasn't firing right. I have had a 660 for years and not had a problem with it firing right. They are usually pretty good along with the URI bulbs.
Scott

[Doug1]

The regular flo bulb will be ok mixed with the oyhers. Offhand I don't know any others better than URI, certainly not the corallife, IME

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I reefed,so I spent,it would have been cheaper to do it right the first time.........Doug@thereeftank
moderator

[Larry M]

Just bringing this to the top for someone with a similar problem.
Scooby discovered his problem as described here: http://www.reefcentral.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000662.html


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Larry M

Northern Reef