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Ballast or switch?

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

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dpatte

August 07, 2012, 03:07:25 PM
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 Unheated Asian Community planted tank: 10 balas, 16 gold barbs, 18 black ruby barbs, 1 red-tail black shark, 8 botia modesta, 4 SAEs, 2 gold CAEs, 24 zebras, 1500gph filtration.
1 75g African planted tank: 3 synos (had them since the late 90s ), yellow lab.s.
1 40g breeder, quarantine/nursery, as the need may be.

jetstream

#1
August 07, 2012, 05:21:24 PM
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!  :)
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