Hamilton twin 250w coil HQI ballast shutting down often?

[garcastle]

Since I hooked up my Hamilton magnetic ballast HQI lights to my RA+ a week ago, the twin 250w HQI's have been shutting off every day at seemingly random times. The ballast is on outlet 2 (twin VHO on 1) with timing of on at 10am and off at 7pm with a 5 min startup delay.

Any thoughts? I'm not too eager to pull out the old appliance timer.
Thanks,
Gordon

[rimai]

Try moving the ballasts away from the head unit or any expansion module.

[garcastle]

It's a mammoth ballast box, it's always going to be within 3-4 feet of the head unit and the main relay box.

The halide twin is back on an appliance timer for now.

Why would moving it help? Are the magnetic coil ballasts known for sometimes having interference issues? If so, do E-ballasts/etc. have similar issues?

Cheers,
Gordon

[rimai]

I've heard of some sort of noise from the ballasts causing interferences in the past and seemed that they could get the problem resolved by moving the cables and ballasts away from head unit.

[DrewPalmer04]

Large ballasts put off a electic field around them. It's complex to get into but they can interfere.

[garcastle]

Large ballasts put off a electic field around them. It's complex to get into but they can interfere.

I finally got some time free to temp wire up my two years old BlueLine electronic 250w ballasts to see if either still worked. Both actually fired up an older 250w HQI lamp just fine.

Would switching from the magnetic coil double lamp ballast to the electronic ballasts eliminate the interference issues? I'll likely switch to the e-ballasts either way but if I KNOW it will eliminate the interference and let me put the halides back on the controller, then I'll make that a next thing to do. :^)

I've also noticed my twin 95w VHOs in my Fuge tank in the basement flicker in an odd fashion. The halide ballast in that same ballast case is not in use and unplugged. Do VHO ballasts also throw out a magentic field that can disrupt things?

Thanks in advance!
Gordon

[rimai]

Try them and let us know how it goes.
I've used 250w galaxy ballasts for a long time with no problems.

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