Help with a 70W HQI fixture

[Wiskey]

Hello all,

I have a 70W MH HQI fixture I'm thinking of putting into service. I struggled with getting it to fire the bulb all the time, so I bought this electronic ballast to replace the magnetic one:

Philips Advance IMH70DLFM :: Metal Halide Electronic Ballast, 70W, 120/277V :: PLATT ELECTRIC SUPPLY

70 Watt, Metal Halide Ballast, Electronic, Pulse Start, 120/277V, ANSI Code: M98/M139/M143., Cat #: IMH70DLFM, Mfr: Philips Advance

www.platt.com

It has an HQI Bulb, and as far as I can tell that's a TD6 which that ballast should be compatible with according to the spec sheet.

But, the new electronic ballast won't fire it all the time either. Now I'm on the fence of scrapping the thing entirely, or trying a new bulb.

Can someone please verify if the ballast I bought should work with this type of bulb?

In case you want to know, the actual light I'm dealing with is the JBJ K-2 Viper 70W MH, this link has the 150W version but it's an old lamp and hard to find info on:

K-2 Viper Lamps

A great upgrade for the jbj nano cube. The K-2 Metal halide upgrades clamp right on to your tank. This unit comes in 2 models

www.jbjnanocubes.com

Thank you,
Whiskey

 

[count krunk]

i would scrap it and get a $100 black box LED from amazon

 

[Wiskey]

i would scrap it and get a $100 black box LED from amazon

I get that, but this is for a Nano tank, the hood won't fit a light of that size. My options are basically AI Prime, building an LED fixture using drivers I have, or getting this thing to work. I loved my XM 10K's and the shimmer they made back in the early 2K's, and I was thinking that I'd love to bring some of that "light life" back to a tank.

I've been using T5's in my big tank for over 10 years, in fact the company that made the retro has probably been out of business that long. It's hard to say that it's still their retro mounted in my hood though, the reflectors got so tarnished that I replaced them, the endcaps failed, or rather got flakey, so I replaced them with almost identical ones, the only thing left is the ballasts and the endcap mounting plates.

I love the efficiency I got with the T5's, but I've always missed that dancing light.

Whiskey

 

[JP Reef]

IF the old ballast had a hard time firing it, and the new one has the same issue then the problem is probably not the ballast. Look at the bulb socket and check the wiring. I had a similar issue with one of my halide lights, and took apart the socket and it was loose and corroded. Cleaned it up and put it back together and haven't had a problem since.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Try a new bulb. I have been using MH for a long time and still do. 99% of the time IME when a bulb fires and goes out and prcess repeats its a bad bulb. Yeah that K2 Viper is an old school light. Was used on nano tanks a lot.

 

[Wiskey]

IF the old ballast had a hard time firing it, and the new one has the same issue then the problem is probably not the ballast. Look at the bulb socket and check the wiring. I had a similar issue with one of my halide lights, and took apart the socket and it was loose and corroded. Cleaned it up and put it back together and haven't had a problem since.

I checked, all the contacts inside the light were perfect. The light was only used for about 2 months by me, but it was about 12 years old when I bought it for very cheap new in box so it was definitely worth checking, thanks for the suggestion!

Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

Try a new bulb. I have been using MH for a long time and still do. 99% of the time IME when a bulb fires and goes out and prcess repeats its a bad bulb. Yeah that K2 Viper is an old school light. Was used on nano tanks a lot.

Haha,.. it's less old school now that it has an electronic ballast!

This is exactly what happens, except the ballast doesn't try again. The light always flickers on, but sometimes it pops off about 2 seconds later and never comes back on. If it stays on during this warm-up cycle it will be good all day, but if it flickers off the light will not come back on.

I've been trying to fire it up all day, lighting the bulb for 10 min, then turning it off for at least an hour and lighting it again. Right now I'm at 4 successful starts, and 3 times it failed to start.

A bulb is $18, 14K is not available as far as I can tell, but an off brand 20K is. I'll give it a shot with one of those!

Thank you for the input, it was really helpful!
Whiskey

 

[Wiskey]

I got the $18 20K bulb in today. I got the one that came with the fixture to fire and did par readings. It came out at 30 PAR at the bottom of the tank.

Now, it's worth noting that although this fixture was made in 2005, I bought it in 2018 very cheap new in box. I only ran it for about 4 months at 6 hours per day over a 5G QT Tank.

When it stopped lighting I put a LED grow light on the QT tank while I replaced the ballast. That didn't fix it, so I put it away.

So, after letting the old bulb warm up for 30 min and taking my 30PAR reading, I shut it down, let it cool and swapped the 20k bulb in.

When I fired the new bulb something interesting happened. It flickered and turned off, but the bulb kept trying (the old one gave up after the first try), it must have flickered 3 times before catching and firing up.

Want to know what the PAR of the $18 bulb is? 95!

There are only a couple left from this seller, but if I'm able to maintain temp with my apex and fans, and it lights every time, I'll use this for my nano build, and I'll buy all 5.

I'm going to break it in over the next few days at 8 hours per day and see if the PAR holds. I'll leave the PAR sensor in the same place to make sure I get comparative readings.

Whiskey