michaelg November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 well the bulb isn't looking so "crisp white" tonight. Way yellow- far more than a saki. Either I got a bum bulb, or it needs more burn in. Are these bulbs quirky about orientation? Yeah, I'm certain it isn't just my eyes getting used to it- in the anenome tank is a 10K with no actinic supp, and it is far whiter (using sand to judge). Thoughts or experiences? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xeon November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Mike, you might try contacting XM Lighting direct. Their website is http://www.xmlighting.com I think they have a phone number listed. I can't remember if my 10K's were yellow, but I seem to remember a tinge of green.. maybe some yellow but it has been a while. I did not do any bulb orientation either, but who knows? They did become bright white though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 9, 2004 Author Share November 9, 2004 Thanks- I figure I will let them burn in for a week and see if there is a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddi November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Michael, I also did see a slight yellow tinge for a while. It completely dissapeared within a couple of weeks, if memory serves me right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 9, 2004 Author Share November 9, 2004 I wrote to them to see if this is common. For reference- e-mail addy is info@xmlighting.com They have the color spectrums of the bulbs there as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krish November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Michael, Don't have any experience with 400 watters. On the 250W 10K here is my experience. The newer one is burning white from Day 1. The other XM, an older model purchased a few months ago did burn yellow for a couple of weeks. So i guess consistency in quality probably is the factor here. Give it a couple of weeks and if you still have an issue, we can contact hellolights and see what they can do. -krish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddi November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Krish, That is interesting. Mine were from last April so hopefully they have improved their QM. Michael, mine are 250W as well and another thing I noticed was that they would look yellow one day, then white the next just to go back to yellow the next before finally 'burning in'. I don't recall if they were at different times in the day and therefore at different burn periods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 9, 2004 Author Share November 9, 2004 The time the bulb has been on is different. First day, only saw it for the first few hours. Second day the last few hours. Jason from XM wrote to me last night. Need to check a couple things. He said it sounded "strange". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krish November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Doug(dbartco), sent back a couple of XM lamps to Marinedepot a few weeks ago, since they stayed yellow for over a month. Doug, do you want to chime in on your experience.? -krish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gatortailale November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 I tried a 400 xm 10k on blueline a year ago. Was yellow like saki. I pulled and switched to 20k. Glenn is running 3 of the xm 400 10k's on PFO I think, and they are white and BRIGHT. Maybe ballast has something to do with it. Glenn is surfing in Hawaii now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
traveller7 November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Apparently XM made a design change a while back. I have not seen any reports of "yellow" in the new stock. Is it possible you have new "old" stock? For curiosity sake what ballast is it hooked to? I have not heard of XM not doing a swap out under the conditions you describe. I have a pile of old bulbs if you need a spare during the exchange. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbartco November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 I did receive 2 XM 10k 400w bulbs from MarineDepot a few months ago. Ran on PFO Magnetic ballast. Didn't try the electronic to see if there was a difference. Put them on a 110gal and one was bright white, one looked quite yellow and stayed that way for while. Tank was really goofy looking. It did even out a little in time, but with the huge difference in the beginning, there was still a noticeable difference. Don't know if I would have worried about it if there was only one light over the tank. Went through XM to replace. The RMA procedure at MD seemed like a hassle, so I went to XM directly. They would not advance replace, but did have a quick turnaround. The replacement looked much more even. Never got word if there was a bad batch around or not, but the customer service at XM was responsive to email. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caribbean Jake November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Michael G I got three 250W 10K MH M58 from Hello two weeks ago. One of the three is burning yellow while the other two are crisp white. I re-wired the CAP and ballasts to make sure it wasn't the wires and even changed the CAP for that bulb without changing the bulb, and still got the same yellow on the other bulb. So it is not the bulb but the CAP. All caps produce 425V at start up and then stabilize at 370W keeping 135V through the CAP. The yellow bulb does not go over 388W at initial start up but keeps 135V over CAP to keep them burning. Being an engineer I will have to say the CAP for that bulb is dull and may need replacement, second option could be the transformer.. remember the ballasts is a combination of a transformer and a CAP = capacitor. Jacob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbartco November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 Just to validate, in my case it did follow the bulb, not the ballast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 i have my 250w xm 10k on a pfo electronic ballast and they look real white. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tang-away November 9, 2004 Share November 9, 2004 i have my 250w xm 10k on a pfo electronic ballast and they look real white. i have 3 250 watter 10k running for about 5 months and they are still white. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 9, 2004 Author Share November 9, 2004 it is a standard magnetic ballast by pfo. It is a dual ballast (2 ballasts in the case- redundancy so it is super easy to test that. I would think other bulbs would have an issue though, and the 20K looked like it should. The 20K isn't that old, so I can always pop it back in if I need to return the bulb. Thanks everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest goblinshark November 10, 2004 Share November 10, 2004 Yea, im using a 400w XM 10k in my science project and its really yellow....but im also using an old ballast Dr. Mac gave me, so that maybe thwe prblm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefMon November 10, 2004 Share November 10, 2004 Aloha! I'm running dual 400 watt PFO M-58's and mine were bright crisp white from day one. If they give you a hard time about it, bring your's by (when I get back) and we can shoot some comparison pics to send them. G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 12, 2004 Author Share November 12, 2004 Good news- when I got home last night it is burning white now so it seems like there might be something in the processing that needs to "burn" off until they get their right color temp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caribbean Jake November 12, 2004 Share November 12, 2004 How long it took to burn crisp white? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelg November 12, 2004 Author Share November 12, 2004 3-4 days roughly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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