zmalexander December 10, 2006 Share December 10, 2006 I have a Helios PC light with holds 2 65W PC bulbs, and used to be wired to ONE ballast. Unfortunately the ballast is gone, but I do have TWO 65W Electro-Lite Electronic Ballasts from customsealife (currently out of business). My question is how do I wire them? Each electronic ballast has 4 wires in the cord (Black, Green, White, Red). Each PC bulb has two wires coming out (one bulb is designated Blue and Brown, and the other bulb with the same configuration is color coded yellow and red). On the ballast, I assume black is hot, green is ground, white is return, and red is ???? On the bulbs, I'm not sure which wire should be in and which is out....but does it matter? I think the bulbs will run no matter which way you run power through them. So I'm thinking run a black line to each bulb to provide a "hot"line, then run a white line back out. and the green and red lines would go unused. Anyone wish to help me out before I kill myself? Zac Here's some Pics of the light and 2 ballasts.... Thanks for the help! Zac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 December 11, 2006 Share December 11, 2006 (edited) Hi Zac, I can't remember the configuration itself, but the wiring itself depends on the pins I think. If you do a search I had the same type of wiring connection before and was able to do it through trial and error. Basically, if you connect the wrong wire to the wrong place it simply won't fire properly (or at all). The problem is that each ballast company colors them differently so there's no magic solution. Is there a wiring diagram on the back of the ballast by any chance? If you get in a jam I can pry open my ballast and see what wires went to what, but again, it's unique from brand to brand. Oh, and most likely the black and white will be paired together and the red and green will be paired together. There is probably not a "ground" wire in the mix. Also, it will depend on the configuration of your bulbs as well (square versus straight pin) to determine which are paired together. Edited December 11, 2006 by davelin315 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmalexander December 12, 2006 Author Share December 12, 2006 No, no wiring diagram on the back of the ballast. If it's just trial and error, I can do that. No need to pry open your ballast. I'll just have to try it out. Thanks though! Zac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmalexander December 12, 2006 Author Share December 12, 2006 No, no wiring diagram on the back of the ballast. If it's just trial and error, I can do that. No need to pry open your ballast. I'll just have to try it out. Thanks though! Zac So, through trial and error, I've found that the Black and Red wires from the ballast are both hot, and the white and green wires are both cold. I systematically tried every combination (I don't THINK I missed any) and could only get half of a bulb to softly light up. I tried both bulbs, and both ballasts. I double checked both ballasts, both are labeled the same (1x65watt Power Combac Lamp), and both bulbs are Coralife 65watt (one actinic, one 10,000K). Any ideas? Zac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind December 12, 2006 Share December 12, 2006 One more pic would help me out here. An end view shot of the fixture were the wires are going in at. Is there any other wires on the ballast besides the ones shown already? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmalexander December 12, 2006 Author Share December 12, 2006 One more pic would help me out here. An end view shot of the fixture were the wires are going in at. Is there any other wires on the ballast besides the ones shown already? Yes, each PC fixture has two additional white wires coming out of it, and directed around to the sides of the fixture. I pulled them out, and they are each separately attached to some time of small device that looks like a fuse or a capacitor, not really sure. It had some writing on it, but I don't remember exactly what it said. I'll post some add'l pics tonight. No other wires coming out of the ballast. I did open up the ballast last nite, and the green wire is indeed a ground. 3 wires come in from the wall, green, white and black (black is the hot one I assume) and four wires go out to the fixture (green, white, red, and black). During my trial and error attempts last nite, I was only hooking up wires one to one, so there were always 2 wires coming from the ballast that were not connected. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should be double connecting any wires. Obviously the ground is not mandatory, so that leaves black, red and white from the ballast, to connect to two wires on the fixture. From my experimenting last nite, both the red and black wires are hot. So should I try connecting both the red and black wires to one side, and the white to the other, or split up the two hot wires? Thanks for everyone's help, I'm certainly no electrician!!! Zac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TROLL January 8, 2007 Share January 8, 2007 I still have old schematics from inland reef aquaria, they all have color coded wires which show where wire goes to- I've used this schematic many time over the years and still the same for almost every ballasts. If you want the schematic, let me know and I'll post for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmalexander January 8, 2007 Author Share January 8, 2007 If you want the schematic, let me know and I'll post for you Please do! Or you can email it to me at zac.alexander@gmail.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TROLL January 9, 2007 Share January 9, 2007 Alirghty I'll send them tonight or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TROLL January 9, 2007 Share January 9, 2007 (edited) Ok here they are! 2 x 28w 4 x 28w 2 x 55w 2 x 96w Edited January 9, 2007 by TROLL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind January 9, 2007 Share January 9, 2007 Zac - Post an end view pic of the ficture or a pic with the cover off so we can see were the wires are going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmalexander January 11, 2007 Author Share January 11, 2007 Zac - Post an end view pic of the ficture or a pic with the cover off so we can see were the wires are going. Here's a view of the endcaps. The white wires on each cap go to a small fuse? Capacitor? that I am holding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind January 25, 2007 Share January 25, 2007 (edited) Zac, Sorry it took so long to get back with you but I forgot about this post. I just PMed you with what I think you need to do to wire this up. Let me know if it works. Edited January 26, 2007 by prevyet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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