Metal Halide problems

I'm a little worried, my Metal Halide has been running a solid 2 months now... well more like 1 1/2 months. I switched over to flowering, and turned off the light.

Now, I tried turning the light back on, and it only puts out about 5% power for about 5 seconds, then shuts off completely again. This happens about every 3-4 mins.

Do I have a problem w/ the ballast or the bulb?

sounds like the ballast is f-ed, if the bulb failed then it would not work at all. i would look into a rebuild kit and save some money,

WOW, this is gonna put a damper on the grow. I'll probably just have to quit and start over in a month.

this is the first grow, and my dumbass didn't prepare for this. Wow, everything was going so good to. F**K ME!!!

well you dont have to use the MH for flower, go to home depot and pick up a 100w HPS to finish up there like $80 and you dont have to ait for it to come in the mail or if your on a budget pick up a fe 2700k CFLs and you can flower with thoose (your buds wount be as tight) but at leaste you can finish ur grow good luck

Magnetic ballasts easily last 10-20 years and failures are very rare so the idea that it's the ballast is pretty off the wall to say the least.
Almost never can you trust advice on this board from newer members without more than a couple people backing it up, this is an example why.

1. Make sure the bulb is tight, try it again. Loose at all will do this.

2. Buy a new bulb. They're real cheap at 1000bulbs.com and or Look into warranty new bulb for free

3. Call the manufacturer, it's under warranty if it was new.

I don't even mention digital because it's a 250 and you probably don't have a digital.

sounds like you just need a new bulb to me...

when my HPS started going out it would randomly cycle the power... (turn off an on)

i was confused so i didnt touch it, then it welded itself into the socket and went out completely

You just need a new bulb. They do that when they go bad . Go to 1000bulbs.com I find them to be reliable and cheap

a dog named chico said:

sounds like the ballast is f-ed, if the bulb failed then it would not work at all. i would look into a rebuild kit and save some money,

Click to expand...

nah, declare war on china! lol

Ok I'm glad to hear that I'm not so fu*ked then.

Just wondering, is my ballast suppose to be heating up anyways, if the bulb doesn't work? I left the light on for about 1/2 an hour and it didn't warm up very much.

Is this bad?

I also have a question about a replacement bulb I seem to be using a skinny bulb (T1, it almost looks like an HPS bulb. Would I be able to use a fat MH bulb (T2?

I can only find the fat ones at Home Depot.

if anyone needs a pic for reference concerning my bulb, just ask

okay, scratch what i said about the different size bulbs, because they're are a lot of different sizes.

I guess what I'm looking for is something that would be compatible with the base right?

I think anything that says E39 Mogul Base would work just fine... right?