I went away for a couple of minutes and then I heard some kind of a poof, and the pj won't light up anymore. I am wondering if it is the ballast that died or the light. As far as I can tell, the bulb looks fine, apart from the yellowish deposit you can see at the bottom of the tube.

Another thing I notice is that I thought I smelled some kind of and overheated electronic part right afterword, which would tend to point to the ballast.

If it is the eballast, I am a bit dissappointed, since it cost quite a bit of money, and since I had mounted it out of the enclosure, along with its own fan so that it would last longer.

Any idea what it could be?

What do you guys think?

Thanks for the help.

JF the RIP PJ man, still mourning...

Hmmmmm the way you described the boom, sounds like a Capacitor, went fooof

was there a foul sort of smell?

can you smell any funny odour from eballast?

Did you blow a fuse or trip a breaker? Are the fans still working? If you have a multimeter you could check that there is voltage at the ballast input.

If there is proper voltage in and no light, inspect the mogul and lamp base and make sure it is making proper contact and the wiring. If all is good there, then the next thing you can to do is buy a new lamp to test the ballast.

If the ballast is dead you can contact Lumenlab by email to find out what options you have reguarding warranty.

Well, I did smell something funny right afterword, but not anymore, and right now, there is no smell coming from the eballast...

I don't have any fuse in there, nor a breaker. And as per the plans, my fan and screen are on the primary switch, and the second one has the ballast by itself, so yes, the fans are still working. I actually tested out the input to the eballast and there is power coming in. I also verified the connections, and they all look fine. I made sure the contact with the bulb was fine too, and nothing will do. The bulb itself looks fine so I don't know what could have made this poof noise. I have no other bulb that I can try with, apart from a sylvania metal arc m58 250 watts. Would this work with the eballast?

As per contacting Lumenlab, I bought the eballast last year, so it's been a little while. As any of you guys experimented with their warranty?

Thanks for all the feedback.

I am realizing how hooked I am to using the pj, especially with my 2 year old son, prior to him going to bed.
I look forward to having it back up again.

The most likely cause of blowing a cap is connecting an eBallast backwards, ie: power to the output, lamp to the input. This will cause the ballast to fail, however, I do not think that the failure is necessarily immediate. This is one of the top reasons for a returned eBallast. If this is what has happened, it is obvious from opening the ballast, and I would not expect a warranty on that, as it is clearly misuse. However, replacing the failed components isn't difficult, and can be done by about anyone competant to identify failed capacitors (Not hard They'll be at least bulged out, and possibly completely exploded) and handle a soldering iron. The component values may be difficult to find from an exploded device, but you may be able to get help from other eBallast owners who got one from the same batch as you.

That was worth a look , but my ballast was hooked correctly, and upon opening it, I could not find anything that looks bulged out nor exploded. I am wondering what could have made that noise if not a blown capacitor, as you say.

What else could it be, or what else could I look at? I am getting desperate, and am willing to do anything to fix the ballast. (I may have to get a new one though).

Thanks for the comments and help though

Other things that could go "bang" include the transistors in the SMPS, often (but not necessarily) MOSFETs, these will be more difficult to locate and replace, but it can be done. Ufortunately, you're not likely to find these replacement parts as cheap, and when you do find them, you have to beware of counterfeit devices.

Yep. Counterfeit transistors. Sad but true. Often sold even at otherwise reputable electronics dealers, who have themselves been suckered at a wholesale level.

The tricky part will be identifying the blown component, in any case. Often these show no outward sign, because they're typically clamped to a heatsink. You can look for damaged casings among the semiconductors which will be bolted to the heatsink, it would also be a good idea to look at the regulators and diodes for heat damage (It could be as simple as a popped zener diode, for example.)

Double check the capacitors, though, since that's still far and away the most common point of failure.

how simply aboiut the onboard fuse

And where would it be? I could not locate anything that looks like it. ....

I have looked at the inside of the ballast again, and maybe it would be those 2 white things in the middle. As you can see, they look a bit burned out... What do you guys think?

If it is that, I don't have a way of knowing wich value it is since it definately looks unreadable...
I don't know if anyone that bought one as of april 2005 could find it in their heart to open theirs and compare what they see to my pictures and tell me what it says on those ...

They look ok

left square one drives the push pull mosfets which supply output to lamp
the long white one is input power control board,, they are potted in epoxy
the unpotted PCB is the smarts board for lamp control

you need to take full frame pic of ballast top and bottom..

and ones at about ten degree angle of component side but full frame

Ok, I tried to take those pictures right now, but I will have to do it again since I don't have enough time right now. Let me know what you think...

Thanks a bunch

here is the last one for now...

On the second pic, the little PCB board has a chip on it,,, are there numbers and letters on it,, if so can you post everything that is written on it..

also take a pic of underside of unit,,, have you looked at underside, because thats where the mosfet's are,,, I will almost bet one of them have blown

Alright, thank you for the help.

I finally had time to open it all up and take pictures of the underside. It definately looks like something has blown up.

As for the little pcb board with the chip on it, the characters are very small. Here is what I can make out

74HC14D
AE428 47
Uh or m(this is what I think either a small h or m)0336F

Thanks again,

JF

here are two more ...

Hmmmmm,, Ummmmm,, Errrrrrrr

needs and expert to repair,,, I could not recomend guiding you on fixing DIY that kind of destruction..

those two Mosfets drive the lamp via a transformer on end of board,,

they have had a catastrophic failure,, as if something had shorted in the output..

You reckon elken. I can’t see the problem. j/k

DJ

This is another reason I don't like the e-ballast. The four fets have no real mounting to the heatsink, just a pressure fit by placing a little piece of foam under then to make them touch the heat sink. This is a horrible way to mount them.
The thermal resistance of the transistor to heat sink is vary important , any one who has overclocked a cpu will tell you all about this, you can see that the thermal past is not even squeezed out of the joint on the e-ballast so the transistor can’t transfer heat vary well. then their is only 4 of them! No wonder they get hot.

There should be a spring clamp used or a screw to make a firm clamping to the heatsink.

Like this.


Click to view attachment

Heh. I wonder if those whos eBallasts don't run "hot" is because of a poor thermal connection.

Personally, in a design like that, I'd have the board bolted to the heatsink, but I'm also the kind of person that explicitly declares default values when I'm programming, too.