1000W MH bulb fails to start up with dimmable ballast/timer

Bought a Nano Xtreme 1000W dimmable ballast and a Digilux 1000W Mh bulb.

They ran fine when I first plugged them in to test it for an hour or so. Then the MH wouldn't fire up at all when I tried it again a few weeks later. Took the ballast and bulb back to the hydro shop and they tested them, found out it was a problem with the brand new bulb. First time they ever seen a bulb with less than a few hours on it be returned.

Plugged the new bulb in and everything worked OK, until I tried it with the timer. The 8" hood fan that is also on the timer fires up just fine. The ballast tries to fire up, the led lights come on, but the bulb never comes on. Tried this with 2 brand new timers (Titan controls and hydrofarm are the brands - about $15 each).

The fan and ballast always come on when they are plugged into the timer, but the bulb just won't light up.

I can get the bulb to come on sometimes when I flip the timer from AUTO to ON. The bulb never comes on when setting the timer to AUTO (the ballast comes on though).

I have not run the 1000W HPS bulb yet either, so it's not an issue of me swapping the bulbs out quickly causing damage.

Searched here and found one post with someone saying a digital ballast needs a pulse start bulb.

Is it possible the bulb is not compatible with the ballast? Is it possible I need a special type of timer to work with this dimmable ballast?

Well if you bought it all from a local hydro shop I would take it all back in and show them your problem.

They are going to be your best source of information and fix to the problem.

Maybe I missed something.

I thought I would ask here first, I get the impression there are far more knowledgeable people here than the guys that work in this particular store.

It was the first store I went into get started and they were not very helpful, and have a bad reputation in this city (did not research the shop prior to buying the ballast combo package there). The fact they told me they have never seen a bulb go bad in less than hour, and begrudgingly gave me a new bulb, leads me to believe there is something else going on. I'll bring it into the shop again if I absolutely have to, but the process for getting the first bulb swapped out wasn't exactly an easy one at this shop, and I would like to avoid ever going in there again if at all possible.

Sounds like your ballast is fuct. Make sure your wire going to the lamp isnt broken and check your socket for poor connections and polarity.