Iwasaki + Pulse Start ballast = potential fire!

[romanr]

I recently purchased some 400W retro kits from hellolights. I bought the pulse start one and choose the Iwasaki 65K bulb because I'm using these for a grow operation and athetics is not a concern but rather rapid growth. Well after my purchase I ran into the RC ballast guide by electric130 and in there he states that "you can run probe start bulbs on these ballasts, but the two ignitors may try to fight each other and possibly cause a fire".

I found simillar information on other websites and when I contacted hello lights about this they replied as follows:

Thank you for contacting us. Ok, to begin the two ignitors will not fight each other, they end up working together for a more quick rapid start, they are completly compatible and will have no issues with the possibility of fires. Please give us a call at 866-969-7333 if you have any questions.

Any opinions? I'm really inclined to ask them to replace the the pulse start ballast with probe start ones. I haven't used any of the equipment so I wouldn't think this is a problem but if the concensus out there is that this is not a problem what so ever then I'll drop it. And yes I know that the Iwasaki bulbs are actually designed to run on mercury balast.

[PaulErik]

With the Iwasaki EYE Clean Ace 6500K lamp the internal starting circuit inside the lamp is not compatible with a ballast with a high voltage external ignitor. The lamp manufacturer does not recommend a ballast with an external ignitor. This could cause damage to the lamp circuitry and/or short the external ignitor circuit on the ballast, especially if the lamp is restarted when the lamp is hot. This could be when a power outage happens the lamp (arc) will extinguish and the lamp will not relight until it has cooled off. The ballast with the external ignitor will try to relight the lamp and will cause arcing within the outer bulb because the lamp is not designed to handle the high voltage produced by the ignitor.

The Iwasaki Clean Ace lamp is not a typical metal halide lamp and is designed to start at a lower voltage. The starting circuit is totally different from a standard (probe start) metal halide lamp. Some metal halide probe start lamps show no signs of problems on a pulse start ballast but it is still not recommended.

[romanr]

Thank you for your reply. I will have hello lights switch the pulse start ballast for the probe start ones.

[anemoneguy]

i would suggest the m59 ballast for iwasaki bulbs. thats what is reccomended by them. just a standard mag ballast/mv ballast.

[romanr]

That's exactly the ballast I requested they replace them with.

Does anyone think it weird that hellolights would say that these are "completely compatible." Does anyone out there agree with hellolight's assessment?

[PaulErik]

Actually EYE Lighting / Iwasaki only recommends a lag / Reactor mercury vapor (ANSI H33) ballast for the 6500K Clean Ace lamps. http://www.eyelighting.com/cleanace.html People have used them on metal halide ANSI M59 CWA (Constant Wattage Autotransformer) ballasts without a problem.

EYE Lighting / Iwasaki recommends the Clean Arc 6500K lamp for use with a probe start ANSI M59 CWA ballast. http://www.eyelighting.com/cleanarc.html

I don’t know where they got that information from. I’ve had many discussions with lamp manufacturers and they only recommend matching ANSI codes. This is because each ANSI code has a different electrical specification and can vary a lot by spec.

Again it depends on the lamp design. Some probe start lamps will work fine on a pulse start ballast but some do show signs of excessive arcing out side of the arc tube. The problem is probe start lamps are not designed to withstand a high voltage pulse (2000-4500 volts) from an external ignitor. It can be done but not recommended.

With the Clean Ace lamp the arcing and shorting is a problem when used on a ballast with an external ignitor.

[romanr]

hellolights responded to my e-mail requesting different ballasts immediately. They will swap them out for me without any problems. I don't doubt that in their many years of experience that they don't think that this ballast/bulb combo is a problem but it seems that the potential is there and I'm glad that hellolights recognizes my concern and will do what is right to make the customer happy. Thanks again PaulErik for your insight.