InControl

I've got an outdoor metal halide fixture that I believe that just the ignitor is bad. Its a GE 70W . I've never dealt with MH fixtures before. Does anyone know where to find a replacement ignitor? or should I just get the whole replacement kit grom GE?

MDShunk

I don't screw around with HID fixtures. If an eye or a lamp doesn't solve the problem, it's getting a ballast kit. Replace the ignitor (if you're right) and the rest of the stuff isn't far behind. When I replace a ballast kit, I always put in a new lamp at the same time. Don't worry about getting the ballast from GE, unless it's a weird form-factor. Just get whatever brand ballast kit your supply house carries .

frenchelectrican

I work on alot of HID's

what you have to do is test with new bulb first. if that fail to work then it good chance that the ingitor can fail there [ this bulb size useally have pulse start just like HPS is ]

and make sure double check the supply voltage as well if get way too low it may not light up at all.

and keep in your mind most MH open circuit voltage useally are from 250-350 volt range on larger one but smaller one it can be low as 100 volt but i dont have the spec with me as i am typing

and some case if the ballast is too expensive i useally just swap with new lumiaire useally little cheaper this way.

merci , marc

yanici

Our work was all in house. We serviced a lot of indoor/outdoor parking areas. We found that a lot of times a new bulb and ignitor did the trick. It saved a lot of cost for ballasts. Since this was in house work, we had spare parts available 24/7 on the individual sites and that allowed us to do the repairs this way.

I can understand a complete change-out kit if you're doing individual service calls. In that case you you have to make sure it's 100% good because you won't be around to babysit it.

brian john

This issue with full replacement comes from if the items are old (been in service a while), exposed to the elements in a fixture housing, plus possible other issues water bugs ECT....Full replacement and avoid a callback next week for the bulb then the ballast..

Different philosophies

oldman

one issue we've seen a bunch lately is the physical ballast size. alot of the smaller wattage 120v fixtures have small ballasts. a multi-tap 100w mh ballast is physically to big sometimes. you may need to order the correct ballast. i which case changing the ignitor may at least get them running till the correct ballast arrives.

InControl

Thanks for the replies thus far. The fixture is only @3 years old. What is considered the "ballast" is just a transformer and an ignitor in this fixture. The transformer is good and looks to be very well built. Where as the ignitor is plastic and looks to be cheaply built.

On a side note, the manager told me that he had replacement fixtures in the store room. Upon inspection, all 4 of these replacement fixtures had just the ignitor removed. So obviously, these whole fixtures were ordered to just replace the ignitor.....I'd hate to do the same and be just wasting good parts.

As stated in the origional post, i've never dealt with MH fixtures. I guess the question is weather ignitors are interchangeable from different manufacturers.

faber307

I look at it from this perspective:

The service call is placed.
Labor charge will be the same whether an individual HID fixture part is replaced, or the entire kit.
The extra money is in the customer's best interest to change all.

If I went to one of our suppliers looking for an ignitor or capacitor, they would sell me a kit. If I only use one of the parts in the box, then charge for that one part and stock the rest on the truck, It doesn't make financial sense on my end.

I also agree with Brian
Change all the parts and you won't get egg on your face a few weeks later.

JohnJ0906

In my experience, so many of these are installed where an extention ladder, lift or bucket truck is needed to reach, it's really in the customers best intrest to replace the whole shebang at the same time.
As Tab said, we get a kit from the supply house, so the cost difference is minor compared to the labor. The customer doesn't want to pay us again a month later because we replaced a bulb the first time, and now the ballast is bad.

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All responses based on the '08 NEC
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