Flourescent ballast question

[Dante]

Hi All,

I am looking at upgrading from NO to VHO lighing in my 48" MH/FL fixture. I opened my FL ballast box to see what I was up against. I had to drill out 4 rivets to get it open and I had a look inside. All the wiring is neatly zap strapped and sits on top of the ballast inside the box. I cleaned out some dust and slid the box back together. My issue is that when I switched the FL lights back on they only come on very dim so as to barely light the tank. There is also some pulsing back and forth visible in the lights. Further messing with the ballast box makes no difference.

What might I have done? How do I fix it? I'm not ready for the upgrade yet.

 

[Len]

A lot of things may have occurred. You could've jarred a wire loose, or accidentally removed a necessary ground, or moved a bulb out of alignment with the pins so that it's not making good contact with the prongs anymore, or a bulb went bad (they are run in series, so if one goes bad, both will not light up). What you'll need to do is open it up and inspect all the connections. If they all look fine, you may have to try swapping in replacement bulbs to see if isn't a bulb gone bad by coincidence.

 

[Anonymous]

Ditto. Bad connection, or bad bulb.

 

[Dante]

Well, I never touched the bulbs so it is quite a coincidence if it's one of them. I didn't really mess with the wiring either but would removing the rivets holding the metal case together have affected the ground?

 

[Len]

The ground could've been tied to one of the rivets (via a spade or ring terminal). I'd look for loose connections first as that's the most likely culprit. Sometimes a slight tug will cause wires to come apart.