Trouble firing a 1kw Horti Blue on a Lumatek digi ballast

[the_extremist]

I recently bought a brand new Lumatek 1kw digital ballast and a brand new Eye Hortilux Blue 1kw lamp.

I'm running on 240V and the lamp will not even reach full brightness. It fires, gets brighter and then dies. Every time, no matter what variable I change. I tried several different hoods and lamp sockets, 120V and 240V, voltage is nominal either way. Wtf?

I went into the grow shop and told them what was up, they gave me this little unit that plugs in between the ballast and lamp cord and it's supposed to fix the strike problem with the Lumateks. Still no dice. Again, wtf?

And here's the icing on the cake: I brought the lamp and the ballast back to the grow shop and had them fire it. Works fine. Even without the strike correction doo-dad. I look like a jackass. Fffffuuuuuuuu...

I want to pull my hair out right now and I'm hoping somebody has some insight here. What am I missing? My receptacles are no different than theirs. Voltage is nominal. Wtf? Any ideas? Does Lumatek just suck at my house or what?

 

[RedRain]

so they used the same mogul and power cord as yours? and same ballast?

the only thing different is your outlet?

what did the store test it on 120v?

 

[the_extremist]

I tested it on 120V and 240V and neither worked at home. The shop was on 240V. Anyhow, I returned the Lumatek and picked up a Harvest Pro Elite instead. The salesman said none of the Hortilux lamps are designed to be used on digital ballasts and will either burn out very prematurely or, as in my case, not strike at all. Would have been nice to know that before buying. The digi's are nice, but I need something reliable so I just went with a magnetic core unit.

 

[9677846]

if you are back up and ruunning thats all that matters but on a side note i actually had a salesman tell me that you should only run hortilux on lumiteks. long story short that was a ver high quality crop not to mention problem free. it soulds like we live in bizarro world"s.
best of luck!!!!!1

 

[supaleeb]

Hey, I've had issues with my ballast not igniting the bulb before (Lumatek 1kW). It isn't a persistent problem, usually unplugging it, waiting a bit, and then plugging it back in will fix it. Although, should be noted that this happens maybe once every 2-3 months.. Not very often.

Also, stupid question, but do you have a 120V/240V ballast? Mine only supports 120V..

 

[the_extremist]

Yeah, it was a 240/120 Lumatek. I think it just might have been a bad unit, but I picked up a mag ballast for the reliability. Plus they cost less than half as much.