lights turned off???....ballasts still on???

[joe fresh]

well i was in my grow room working and moving plants around, and as im about to leave the room, all lights except one turned off(6/7), so i went to check the ballasts and they seemed to still be working.


so i checked the light again and they were still off all but one, so i decided to turn off the main breaker in my sub pannel, wait 5 min or so and turn back on, all lights worked.

its been 2 hours or so and all lights are still on....

what would have cause this to happen?

my first thaught was burnt bulbs, but i dont think 6 of 7 bulbs would make sense if they were bunt....especially since they turned back on after i flipped the breaker....


any thaughts??

 

[SumDumGuy]

well i was in my grow room working and moving plants around, and as im about to leave the room, all lights except one turned off(6/7), so i went to check the ballasts and they seemed to still be working.


so i checked the light again and they were still off all but one, so i decided to turn off the main breaker in my sub pannel, wait 5 min or so and turn back on, all lights worked.

its been 2 hours or so and all lights are still on....

what would have cause this to happen?

my first thaught was burnt bulbs, but i dont think 6 of 7 bulbs would make sense if they were bunt....especially since they turned back on after i flipped the breaker....


any thaughts??

This all points to the load my friend. What boggles me is that the breaker should have flipped under an excess. But your bulbs just went out - plain weird. Are you running anywhere near 80% capacity on that segment?

 

[joe fresh]

im running a total of 7 lights @ 240 = 29 amps + 3 ton a/c(15.6 amps) = 44.7 amps


running on 6 awg wire to my sub pannel, which i believe is rated 60 amps, and 48 amps would be max load right? and to the touch the wire is cold, so the wire is not even overheating. the only thing i have plugged to the sub pannel is the ballasts and a 3 ton a/c

but what boggles my mind is that one light still stayed on.....


this all happened a week or 2 ago, i only had 3 lights plugged in, and 2 of the 3 went out, so i did the same thing(flipped breaker off/on) and everything worked fine.....


im in the middle of the run and just started flowering 2 days ago so i dont want to tear everything down, but i dont want my house to burn down if there is a problem....



(i should also mention that i have 10 ballasts, hooked up to relays and a timer, im only using 7 lights so only 7 ballasts are being used.....so from the 7 ballasts i have 14 lights, 7 in each room on flip flop, both on 12/12 right now.

but this thing with the lights going off has only happened to room "A", and not room "B" even though both rooms are running from the same ballasts and same load wire and sub pannel.......so i just dont get it.....

 

[Panama Red]

Relays.......

 

[SumDumGuy]

Panama Red hit it on the head. You relays bro. How old are they? If they make contact while the ballasts are on then they may arc causing burt contact. This is extreme and excessive wear and tear. They might need replacing.

 

[joe fresh]

relays are as old as my room, and everything in it, since march.


from what i can see relays look ok, but if you think its the relays, you might be right, they are cheap enough to replace, i think like 10$ each.....the problem is....

im not the one that installed them, and am not familliar with them, are they hard to replace?

 

[joe fresh]

heres a pic of my relays

 

[Panama Red]

The problem is definitely with your relays, but not necessarily the relays themselves.

From the looks of it those are switched with a lower voltage (12v-24v?), controlled by your timers.

Unfortunately, the control voltage is wired in series which means that a bad crimp on one of those blue-collared lugs or an intermittent jumper wire between relays is going to prevent all the relays downstream from either energizing or releasing properly.

Do you have a voltmeter and do you know how to use it?

There are only two correct answers to ^that^ question.
1)Yes and yes...or...
2)I just bought one and I'm spending the next 24 hours learning how to use it.

The good news is that you don't have to worry about this problem burning down your house.

The bad news is your A room plants may die in the dark.

 

[joe fresh]

well panamared

TY, i can now sleep a bit better, lol. so basicaly what your saying is that my relays are like christmas lights, if one goes down the rest in line fail to work??

i do have a multi-meter(i think its the same) but am unsure how to use it, i tried to use it to ohm test the coils on my boat but i couldnt figure out how to work it properly


TY panamared and sumdumguy, if only all problems were solved as easily and efficiently

 

[rives]

Another scenario here would be that you had a voltage sag on the circuit feeding your lighting (or the whole neighborhood). HID lamps are very sensitive to the sag and will drop off line until the gases condense and the lamp can re-ignite. The ballasts remain powered up the whole time this is happening.

 

[Panama Red]

Another scenario here would be that you had a voltage sag on the circuit feeding your lighting (or the whole neighborhood). HID lamps are very sensitive to the sag and will drop off line until the gases condense and the lamp can re-ignite. The ballasts remain powered up the whole time this is happening.

But they don't selectively leave one lamp burning as joe experienced.

With a "voltage sag" or "spike" it's all or nothing, it doesn't differentiate between one circuit and another.

 

[Panama Red]

Joe, learn how to use that multi meter or keep that sketchy electrician on retainer with the dirtbag/lawyer you have.

 

[rives]

But they don't selectively leave one lamp burning as joe experienced.

With a "voltage sag" or "spike" it's all or nothing, it doesn't differentiate between one circuit and another.

I have never seen all of the lights go out on the factory floor as a result of a sag. Usually it is restricted to the oldest lamps. I'm not talking about a complete outage, just a dip like when a high horsepower, high inertia machine starts up.

 

[LastWaltz]

I have never seen all of the lights go out on the factory floor as a result of a sag. Usually it is restricted to the oldest lamps. I'm not talking about a complete outage, just a dip like when a high horsepower, high inertia machine starts up.

Maybe the 3 ton AC...

 

[SumDumGuy]

I'm more comfortable with PanamaRed's pre-diagnosis of this situation. It makes total sense that the relays are not receiving the power needed to complete the switch. On a factory floor we will have lines dedicated to multiple feeds causing multiple lights to remain on with alternate power sources (Different Feeds).

Here we are connected to a single segment which the OP stated the wires are bone cold. "Service Sags are way more less likely then a service spike which is really common. This will cause the breakers to flip with the excess from the service entrance.

To be quite honest I am REALLY impressed by the electrical job that was performed Joe Fresh. Would it be possible to take a few more pictures of your electrical panel with the relays. Are you using one timer? You see I assume that the timer shuts the ballasts prior to flipping for fire safety. Being that the ballasts are off prior to the flip (at least I assume again) then it makes total sense that the flip happens on the (DC)circuit side. Since the DC side is isolated from your (AC) power. I think you can perform the test safely as PanamaRed suggested with a Multimeter. I would leave the (DC) power feeding the transformer your using for the relay but I WOULD COMPLETELY SHUT THE 240 LINE FEEDING THE LIGHTS BEFORE PERFORMING THE TEST. YOU ARE JUST TESTING THE FLIP ACTION WHICH IS (DC) BASED. WE KNOW THE 240 IS ROCK SOLID.

Obviously the setup has worked well for some time . Its a really SWEET setup! Just remember relays should generally be replaced EVERY 2 YEARS!! Good luck and please check back .

 

[SumDumGuy]

relays are as old as my room, and everything in it, since march.


from what i can see relays look ok, but if you think its the relays, you might be right, they are cheap enough to replace, i think like 10$ each.....the problem is....

im not the one that installed them, and am not familliar with them, are they hard to replace?

Again please refer to an electrician before proceeding but I've seen many ICMaggers get saved from shotty electrical work. So just make sure to check back here just the same before anything.

 

[Tilt]

Another scenario here would be that you had a voltage sag on the circuit feeding your lighting (or the whole neighborhood). HID lamps are very sensitive to the sag and will drop off line until the gases condense and the lamp can re-ignite. The ballasts remain powered up the whole time this is happening.

this is th most likely in my opinion.

 

[rives]

OP, were you in a position to have heard the relays chatter when the lights went out?

 

[Avenger]

crimp on connectors and solid wire = intermittent shorts

the one light that stayed on was probably the upper left relay, number one in series.

 

[joe fresh]

OP, were you in a position to have heard the relays chatter when the lights went out?

i was in the area but i dont think i remember hearing the relays flip, but they might have....i just remember seeing 6 of 7 lights go out....and checking the ballasts to see if the were still running.....and making sure every thing is still ok...