inghamcaregiver
Member
Good morning,
Here is the situation...I found what I thought was an incredible deal on some 1000 watt Metal Halides on my local craigslist. Bulb, ballast and hood for $50 each. They aren't the typical grow lights with remote ballasts and what not, but instead the kind used for industrial warehouse and parking lot lighting. No cords, just capped wiring.
In a fit of excitement, I madly ran out and bought two of them last night. This morning I start doing some closer examination, pull off the cover and am greeted by a big sticker saying, "warning, this unit wired for 480 Volts."
Well, crap. I'm now wondering if I just went and bought $50 paper weights...
I don't know much about electricity, so is there any way to make these work? I've done some reading and am still hopeful that these might be multi-tap ballasts, but I have no idea how to check that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!
Edit: I've been digging further into this thing and it does appear the ballast has 2 taps, 1 120volt and 1 480 volt. (I'm assuming the 120 tap is the smaller of the 2. Please correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption.) That is the good news. The bad news, there is another sticker that says, "Note: 120v tap not for primary connection. It is for auxillary connection to incan. lamp loads of 500 watts max and used only when HPS bulb is extinguished."
So does this mean that the ballast would support up to a 500 watt light using the 120v tap? Would it likely be able to support a 400 watt MH instead of a 500 watt incandescent? Does it make a difference being that I'm using this for MH and NOT HPS? (it had MH bulbs in it when I bought it...) Also, would this seem to indicate that I could use these for HPS at some point too?
Sorry. I'm SO not an electrician, and really don't want to burn the place down.
Here is the situation...I found what I thought was an incredible deal on some 1000 watt Metal Halides on my local craigslist. Bulb, ballast and hood for $50 each. They aren't the typical grow lights with remote ballasts and what not, but instead the kind used for industrial warehouse and parking lot lighting. No cords, just capped wiring.
In a fit of excitement, I madly ran out and bought two of them last night. This morning I start doing some closer examination, pull off the cover and am greeted by a big sticker saying, "warning, this unit wired for 480 Volts."
Well, crap. I'm now wondering if I just went and bought $50 paper weights...
I don't know much about electricity, so is there any way to make these work? I've done some reading and am still hopeful that these might be multi-tap ballasts, but I have no idea how to check that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!
Edit: I've been digging further into this thing and it does appear the ballast has 2 taps, 1 120volt and 1 480 volt. (I'm assuming the 120 tap is the smaller of the 2. Please correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption.) That is the good news. The bad news, there is another sticker that says, "Note: 120v tap not for primary connection. It is for auxillary connection to incan. lamp loads of 500 watts max and used only when HPS bulb is extinguished."
So does this mean that the ballast would support up to a 500 watt light using the 120v tap? Would it likely be able to support a 400 watt MH instead of a 500 watt incandescent? Does it make a difference being that I'm using this for MH and NOT HPS? (it had MH bulbs in it when I bought it...) Also, would this seem to indicate that I could use these for HPS at some point too?
Sorry. I'm SO not an electrician, and really don't want to burn the place down.
