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Ballast or switch?

Started by dpatte, August 07, 2012, 03:07:25 PM

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dpatte

I have a corallife reflector hood ( 4 x CF55 ), but one of the pair of lights does not work.

Could a ballast fail, but for only 2 of the lights in a reflector hood, or is it more likely the switch for that pair of lights that is faulty?

If it is the switch or the ballast, is it worth repairing?

Dp
1 210g Asian Community planted fast water tank: balas, tiger & black ruby barbs, red-tail black shark, rainbows, loaches, SAEs, gold CAEs, 1500GPH river flow, plus 1500gph filtration.
1 75g African planted tank: 3 synos (had them since the 90s), yellow labs, kribensis.
1 40g breeder, silicone-divided into two - quarantine and nursery.

jetstream

It all depends on the ballast is design in series or in parallel. If it's a in series ballast, if one of the light burnt, the other one won't be able to turn on. You can use a volt meter to measure the light's socket, you should be able to get some voltage reading in DC if the ballast is still in working condition.

Is it worth repairing will highly depends on few things. A Sylvania, philip or Work horse electronic ballast is cheap. The problem is lots of light fixture is built with intergrated circuit or even printed circuit on the housing. The room will be tight to to put a over counter ballast on. A Sylvania electronic ballast is approx 18" long 1 1/2" wide and 3/4" tall. You can check the fixture to see it has the room to put one in. Good luck!  :)