Metal halide bulb started flickering

so after doing an hour or so worth of research on lighting on the forums... i went to my grow box to water and check on things. Out of no where the light made a noise, it looked entirely different color and begun to flicker. i let it flicker for a few minutes and it started to get quite a bit hotter, noticed the cord to the light getting hot. so i unplugged it. the bulb is newish, probably been running 2-3 weeks now. the ballast is old, but only ~8-12 months total use.
its a 400 watt HPS ballast with a 400w MH conversion bulb.
wish i had a backup bulb to try, they have some at the local hardware store, might have to settle with a HPS bulb at a lower watt.
i tend to think its a sign i need to change my lighting setup... lol
anyone want to guess on ballast or bulb?? just thought it was weird the bulb was still 'working'
much thanks...

Conversion bulbs are from the old soviet era grows and altho the beezknees of tech have been replaced by the trusty digital ballast grows where you get another light at the flick of a switch, back then many growers avoided the conversion bulbs due to price and unsatisfactory yields ...time for you to do the same and consider the ease of a digital light?

ya ive been on the fence with building some DIY cree lights, its like this was my sign to ditch the MH/HPS combo... im not really sure what happened yet, i unplugged the light from the balast... and it seems like the little cooling fan use to kick on in the past, even if it was unplugged from the light... i removed the bulb, and plugged in the ballast, still dont hear the cooling fan spin. its an old 400w digital green house balast from HTG supply.... also the bulb looks 'fine', i dont see any broken wires, or explosion signs inside... looks like im off to the hardware store for a couple CFL bulbs for the time being...

Zoltan32 said:

ya ive been on the fence with building some DIY cree lights, its like this was my sign to ditch the MH/HPS combo... im not really sure what happened yet, i unplugged the light from the balast... and it seems like the little cooling fan use to kick on in the past, even if it was unplugged from the light... i removed the bulb, and plugged in the ballast, still dont hear the cooling fan spin. its an old 400w digital green house balast from HTG supply.... also the bulb looks 'fine', i dont see any broken wires, or explosion signs inside... looks like im off to the hardware store for a couple CFL bulbs for the time being...

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Email htg. They were really good about responding to my only two problems with gear I have ever had. Which was a bad bulb from the get go and a digi ballast that failed in less than a year. At the least they might have a technical answer. I wouldnt go ditching hps and mh. I have two 3070cxas@1200ma and although I love then. My mainstay is a couple 600 digis and another couple 400w digis. That may change if cree or any other led producer can better what they have already done. Btw I have not been able to replicate the veg power of a mh bulb, I think it is the uv that mh puts off. I know led offers uv emmiters but I have not gotten that far into it yet.

Also picked up spare ballast recently 600w lumatek for 120$, quality bulbs run 50-75$ some 600w bulbs cost morw than the same brand of 1000w. And my 400w lumateks were on ebay for 80$ and vminnovations.com has digilux bulbs for dirt cheap, I prefer the hortiluxs though. For now it is much cheaper than led.

i bought this ballast maybe 5-6 years ago, used it for about a year. and it sat up untill about a month ago. bought a bulb from hortisource, its a 'xtrasun' brand, think i paid 40 bucks or so... it was a MH conversion bulb, as i have a HPS ballast. thought i was doing everything right, its says right on the ballast what it is and what to use.

and ya, i bought two of these 100w equiv. Cree 'bulbs' for the hardware store, and lol it looks so dark in there now. They are just a couple week old seedlings, so i have some time. i was extremely impressed with the MH bulb