Ah dude you’re great haha. I’m clueless apparently. And it’s in stock nice. Work has been kicking my ass lately, but I’m definitely going to work on it when I get home in a few hours. Will post some pics.
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@Palindrome OK so I got the new outlet wire hooked up and walla!
So I unscrewed the socket and now I have two wires leading to it. Are these what I’m extending or do I need to go deeper?
Also it appears that perhaps the two screw holding the socket to the ballast might have been ground it to the frame. Perhaps this is the reason I got the 14/3 with ground wire?
only slightly lost 
You can extend of from thouse two, if you remove the socket.
But I would go deeper, and see if you can’t connect it more directly.
Will give less room for loose connections, and you could prolly pull the wire out from the side of the box.
On the pic of the light’s on, there are like two “outlet” holes that’s still blocked off.
I imagin it’s for a serial connection, of several of thouse lights.
My guess is there will be space for your cable to go thru, and you won’t have to deal with sleaving the wires and getting them down thru the magnetic coil.
I have taken many ballasts apart, and never seen wires go thru the magnetic coil like that.
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The ground wire is to eleminate the electic buzz, if you have ground wiring in your house I would use that.
I run my ground wire directly to my lamp, if not I get a tiggeling feeling when I touch the reflector with my wrist.
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By lamp you mean the socket or ballast? The ballast frame is connected to household ground through the outlet. So I’m assuming I would be able to simply run the new ground from the socket all the way back to the common ground on the frame no?
I’m currently trying to figure out how to extend the Braided wire wire from the socket from deeper within.
Lamp - The reflector/socket sorry, and yes from the groundwire in the housing.
If you look at the pic I uploaded of my old ballast, you can see the yellow/green groundwire.
Go into the ballast, then is split in two, one to the casing and one goes to the socket/reflector.
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Well I’m back to pick your brain a bit @Palindrome.
Would I be correct in assuming this ballast can support a 1k hps? I know I’d need a mogul socket for the bulb, but I can’t find any specs on these ballasts so all I can go off is the label.
To be honest, I am not sure and I think it would require more investigation on the coil part of the ballast.
I have never seen a ballast with that great a span, that would be able to light anything from a 380-1000 Watt.
So I might fear they just had one lable, then made a mark on the lable (thats long gone). Indicating what type of ballast, that is inside the housing.
On the other hand, if you got a 1K bulp try and see if it will light up.
Should not do any damage to either ballast or bulp, if it won’t work it just won’t light up.
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Sorta off topic but this exact same thing happens with a friends’ freezer. Something to be worried about?
MH bulbs can explode. I have had a 1KW MH bulb explode. It was housed in a hood with a glass shield so it was not as bad as it could have been.
Here’s some information for consideration: BOOOM!
The pink socket is a good thing! I just noticed it.
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I don’t think so, and as long there is a Residual-current device in your powerwall.
It will cut the power, in case of any short circuits.
Here they are mandatory, a long with groundwire for all main power instalations.
From wireing it wrong? Never heard about that before at least.
Old HID bulps can explode indeed. But no grower should use his bulps that long, by then they have lost over 50% of their light output.
That would result in 50% less harvest … I can only recommend changing bulps once a year minimum. Even at 5% loss, the missing buds would bring in more money then changing bulps would cost.
To my knowledge a 1K MH bulp won’t take damage, if you try to start it with a 400W ballast. The ignitor just wont be strong enough, to heat the gas up to ignition and it won’t turn on. Then stop the test!
Don’t try the other way, a 1K ballast will most likely kill a 400W bulp. As the ignitor current is a lot higher and I imagin it could over heat, but I have never tried it. Again there are many different ballasts, some can handle different size bulps.
Largest span I have seen was 400 - 800 Watt, you could ignite 1x 400Watt, 1x 600 Watt, 1x 750Watt og 2x 400 Watt HPS. I think it was an Hortilux ballast, saw them at a dutch greenhouse expo (not cannabis related) over 10 years ago
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It was not from wiring and the bulb was less than a year old. It can happen and it is very explosive when 1000 watts go bang.
This also applies to CMH bulbs. They actually make bulbs rated for open use. Thay have protective glass around arc tube. Worth the extra $
Id have to state, its a thing that very rarely happens with bulps under a year old.
I have worked in greenhouses for a handful of years, with hundreds of HID lights.
Along with the many HID lights I have owned myself, I can’t recall ever seen a new bulp explode.
But during my apprenticeship, I have changed more bulps then I care to remember.
Wearing cotton gloves, as the grease from fingerprints can cause the bulp to crack/explode when it get’s hot.
That I have seen, but useualy it will happen quite fast after a “greasy” instalation.
But just to be safe: Don’t build your grow room from dry cardboard, if your gonna use HID lights.
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