Hey everyone,

It's been 8 months since I completed my projector but now I'm starting to have problems. It's taking a long time for the bulb to strike, almost an hour. And tonight, the light is very dim. Just last night it was very bright. Now everything is a shade darker. I opened my projector lid and got ready to hide my eyes from the bulb but now it's not as bright.

I'm using a LL Electric Ballast and LL Metal Halide Lamp.

If anyone can lend a hand I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

Roger

Did you solder all the connections? if not you could get some electrical build up on the connections and decrease the conectivity, But it actually sounds like the ballast.

I would 1st eliminate the bulb, and connections 1st, just get a cheap bulb from HD if it does the same return it if you aslk them about the return policy, alot of electrical parts are not returnable.

Joe

I'd put my money on an eballast problem. After 3 eballasts I gave up and went with a core and coil ballast. Not a very elegant solution but #1 it's cheap and #2 it's very unlikely to fail anytime soon. I've noticed a discernable increase in light output since switching to the core and coil ballast as well.

Thanks for the speedy replies, guys.

joe2000chevy - I didn't solder any of the connections. I only used terminal strips and screw caps. I'll go over the wiring and make sure everything is tight. Thank you.

pulsareus - Man, you went through three of them? I went with the eballast because I thought it would be safer and easier to wire. Do you know if a coil ballast with work with the LL bulb and mogul?

I do have a friend who has an eballast and bulb for a projector he never finished. I'll try and hit him up and see if I can borrow it.

Thanks for the help guys.

Roger

I think I found my own answer. I'll have to track down a HPS ANSI S51 ballast now.

Well, I had a talk with Brian and he helped me narrow some things down. I went out and got a coil ballast but I'm having some problems wiring it up. It doesn't have a ground like the eballast is that right? To me that sounds strange.

yes, the coil ballasts need a ground. usually has or needs a screw into the core of the ballast. some companies provide a self tapping screw that you put into one of the predrilled holes. some times the cores are painted and sanding the area you are grounding to will help your grounding conection.

Before you give up on the e-ballast, try taking out the bulb and cleaning the mogul and bulb base with some acetone. After a while, there can be carbon build-up that will cause problems with the striking of the bulb. Brainchild has hypothesized that this could be responsible for many failed e-ballasts; worth a shot to check. Good luck!

Not just a hypothesis. Most of the eBallasts returned have worked fine. There have been a lot of carbon problems and mis-wired ballasts, and about 3% - 5% of the ballasts were DOA presumably due to shipping. We know this because proper operation is confirmed at the factory; the ballasts are burned for 100 hours prior to shipment.

The latest generation of eBallasts have been improved by analysis of the dead ones. Mostly the transformers have broken loose from the circuit boards, and there have been cases of calibration jump due to 'drop-shipping' causing havoc on the trim pots. Lots of extra glue has reduced the failure rate to less than 1%. While we were at it, we cranked up the heat to 420w and increased the starting impulse current. There have been no failures since these changes have been made.

Pulsareus...3 dead ballasts? I'd like to discuss this with you.

FWIW: I've had the same eBallast from the first batch ever ordered, in my enclosure, next to my lamp, without fail. It has struck lamps I never thought it could fire. My coil ballast dimmed off and went green on me in less than a year, which is what started the eBallast research.

Brain,
When did LL start stocking the new version of the ballast?
Thanks.

Also Roger, You can send your ballast to me for testing...

I would love to check it out.

8 weeks ago.

Thanks for the offer, brain. But I'm thinking my bulb is dead. I never noticed white stuff near the bottom and I think it's gotten bigger because of all my handling. Is this normal? Anyway, I'm going to see if my firend will let me borrow his bulb for testing. I'll get in touch in a couple days.

Brain, I apologize for the confusion. Only one of the three actually died completely. I purchased two from you guys. The second died and you guys were great with the replacement.

The first one I had worked the best of the three. It was one of the original LL eballasts. I had two main gripes with it, those being interference and brightness. Try as hard as I might, no combination of toroids could fully eliminate the interference on tv channels 1-5. Although other factors affect brightness, I was disappointed to find my brightness to be significantly lower than a friend's in a side-by-side comparison. He was using a venture m135 ballast and ps bulb. I eventually sold PJ#1 and started on #2.

I was still happy enough with the weight and formfactor of the eballast to buy a second one for PJ#2. Once again I got one of the original LL eballasts. It worked throughout testing and building of the PJ, but somewhere around 10-30 hours into use of the PJ it died on me. During the initial use I would also experience flickering for the first 10ish minutes. Getting a replacement from LL wasn't difficult. Total turnaround time was somewhere around 2 weeks with priority shipping in both directions.

The replacement ballast I recieved ended up being one of the new ones. It was larger than the original and just barely fit without getting in the way of the lightpath. The new ballast would work fine for the first 20 minutes or so after striking, then the light would begin to flicker and dim. Touching the case of the ballast confirmed that it was overheating. It would get extremely hot, which seemed to contradict the "Cool running" feature listed on the LL product page. I didn't have space to install an active cooling setup, so I opted for a core and coil ballast.

I've been much happier with the core and coil ballast. The increased brightness has allowed me to optimize my image contrast for better picture quality and I now have zero problems with dark scenes. I don't have any more interference problems, the flickering is gone, and it's been a good while since I've had to wonder whether or not the pj would actually work for the duration of a movie.

I know there are plenty of people out there who have had a great experience with their LL eballasts. These are just my personal experiences. The frustration of the problems is compounded by the fact that my PJ is mounted to the ceiling. Every time there is a problem I have to take it down, which is a huge pain.

Hmm, that is bad luck. The ballasts should run warm to the touch, not hot. When you compared your brightness to your friend's, were you also running a PS lamp? Otherwise it wouldn't be a very fair comparison...

They were both PS lamps. I had the bulb previously sold here(i believe the designation was MH400/u/MOG/40/PS) and he had the venture PS with the venture m135 ballast purchased back when you were recommending the products from that other online lighting store. We both had similiar reflectors, and both PJs had been aligned for best output.

I definitely agree with you about items getting damaged during shipping. My second ballast arrived with one of the sides popped off and the insides sticking out a bit. I pushed them back in and re-attached the side. It worked just fine after that so I didn't think twice about it. With my first ballast I also recieved a broken Ushio which you guys were quick to replace. The box had been mishandled so violently that the inner arc chamber had broken loose. I believe I posted pictures of it somewhere around here.

Well, I'm truly sorry you had such a bad experience. I can tell you that the Ushio PS lamps running on the latest ballasts will melt your eyes out. My 8" wasn't even watchable until I dropped one of the PS lamps in.

Well, I guess it's my bulb. I connected the coil ballast and it would not strike either. I never did get to try another bulb but either way I put in an order for another S400DD.

My S400DD died after about 7 months and acted just like yours - slow to start then only dimmly burning. I had the bad fortune to leave the dim light on without the fan running and melted my lenses when the light finally went full power. Replaced the lenses and the old bulb for a new bulb and eballast. Everything is working better than ever. (I did have to move the new bulb outward because of the new arc (the part that generates the light) placement.)

Having read the forums lately, I see that the arc will get darker when the bulb is going bad. I checked mine and it was blackish towards the end.

Yeah, it's a bummer but I'm actually glad it's the bulb and not something else. I really like the eballast because of the heat issues with the coil ballast and the fact that I'm not that great an electrician. I was really hesitate to even try wiring it. My new bulb shipped so in a couple of weeks I should be back up and running.

I got my bulb today. It came very fast even using the cheapest shipping method. I put it in and it lit within 5 seconds! Thanks for everyone's help, I really appreciated it.

Roger

Everything has been going good so far but I'm starting to think why my first bulb went so soon. My Eballast runs hot. Very hot. You can only keep your hand on it for about a second. I have it mounted on the outside but can a hot ballast ruin a bulb too quickly? I might switch to a core coil ballast if this is the case.