Turning halides on and off?

[BowieReefer84]

I have heard that once you turn a metal halide on you should not turn it right off. Or once you turn it off you should not turn it right on? Can someone please explain the validity of this, and if it is true what the "wait" times are?

 

Thank you.

 

I am used to flicking the on/off switch on my PC's whenever I want . . .

[gmubeach]

Not sure? I know they take 5 mins to reach peak flow!

[Coral Hind]

There is no harm by turning them off right after you turn them on. There is also no harm to turning them on right after you turn them off. They will take about 5-10 minutes to start back up because of the high pressure inside the now hot arc tube. Once the arc tube cools it will light again.

 

 

[BowieReefer84]

There is no harm by turning them off right after you turn them on. There is also no harm to turning them on right after you turn them off. They will take about 5-10 minutes to start back up because of the high pressure inside the now hot arc tube. Once the arc tube cools it will light again.

 

 

 

Thanks. Appreciate it!

 

 

 

[DaveS]

One consideration- most but not all ballasts know not to try and reignite the bulb while it's still hot. I used to have a light that wasn't that smart.

 

After a brown out or power flicker, it would keep trying and blow out the capacitor in the ballast. It was easy to change out but still a pain. I got an inline GFCI that would trip and stay off when the power got interrupted. The lights would stay off until I manually reset the GFCI and that solved that problem. Better yet, I eventually figured out some programming for my AC3 that would do the same thing and I was able to get rid of the GFCI.

[Glenn]

[snip] Better yet, I eventually figured out some programming for my AC3 that would do the same thing and I was able to get rid of the GFCI.

 

I don't remember what the setting is, my my RKL has the same feature. It you select MH as the light source, it will ask if you want "Smart [something]" also. And I think the downtime is 15 mins before it will allow the MH to fire up again.