T5 ballast, how to check?

[PedroYoung]

I've been running a T5/LED hybrid fixture for about 4 years (Giesemann Aurora). It was one of the early ones that had 120V T5 ballast for 60" 80W ballasts. About a year ago 2 of the bulbs stopped firing (fixture has 2 sets of dual bulb so 4x80W T5's which work in pairs). I swapped bulbs around and the problem stayed with the pair of fixtures. I've been just using the other pair and was doing my yearly bulb swap yesterday. I decided to max out the channel that hadn't been working on the software and just try again swapping bulbs to ensure I hadn't missed anything. The bulbs that had been in the non-working fixture fired up fine in the one that had been working. Moved that bulb back to the non-working fixture and it still didn't work. So I just changed the bulb in the working fixture and tested it out. All good. Then I noticed that the non-working bulb was trying to start, then finally kicked off (I still had the slider at 100%). My question is I guess how would I check the ballasts to see if that's the problem (as opposed to loose wire or corroded contact etc). It's a real pain in the rear to take the fixture apart but it can be done. Is there a single ballast for each pair of bulbs? Not sure where to start if I want to get the other pair going.

 

[Reefing Madness]

 

[oreo54]

Probably the best approach is to assume you have a bad ballast.
Replace it.
If it fixes the problem..done.
If not you need to look at the wiring.
Which of course you already have started


Soo worst case..You find you have bad connections somewhere and now have a spare ballast.....

Bad connections on the tube ends, corroded switches or bad ballast...
Most common problems.

 

[fishface NJ]

I have a unit that is made by Tek Lighting. Can I replace the ballast with a ATI brand? One of my two channels doesn't fire up

 

[Reefering1]

I have a unit that is made by Tek Lighting. Can I replace the ballast with a ATI brand? One of my two channels doesn't fire up

Yes, just make sure it is for the same number of bulbs and wattage of bulbs

 

[Goubli]

I've been running a T5/LED hybrid fixture for about 4 years (Giesemann Aurora). It was one of the early ones that had 120V T5 ballast for 60" 80W ballasts. About a year ago 2 of the bulbs stopped firing (fixture has 2 sets of dual bulb so 4x80W T5's which work in pairs). I swapped bulbs around and the problem stayed with the pair of fixtures. I've been just using the other pair and was doing my yearly bulb swap yesterday. I decided to max out the channel that hadn't been working on the software and just try again swapping bulbs to ensure I hadn't missed anything. The bulbs that had been in the non-working fixture fired up fine in the one that had been working. Moved that bulb back to the non-working fixture and it still didn't work. So I just changed the bulb in the working fixture and tested it out. All good. Then I noticed that the non-working bulb was trying to start, then finally kicked off (I still had the slider at 100%). My question is I guess how would I check the ballasts to see if that's the problem (as opposed to loose wire or corroded contact etc). It's a real pain in the rear to take the fixture apart but it can be done. Is there a single ballast for each pair of bulbs? Not sure where to start if I want to get the other pair going.

This is nuts bc I literally have the same issue with my aurora right now. Weird thing is that the ballast was firing up and working properly until I changed out to new bulbs. I have even tried using different bulbs. The lights would come on for a bit then turn off. I could fiddle the bulb and get the channel to come back on then they would quit like 20-30 min later. Now I can't get it to even turn on.

Did you find the solution to your problem? I dread trying to take down the fixture and troubleshoot.

 

[PedroYoung]

This is nuts bc I literally have the same issue with my aurora right now. Weird thing is that the ballast was firing up and working properly until I changed out to new bulbs. I have even tried using different bulbs. The lights would come on for a bit then turn off. I could fiddle the bulb and get the channel to come back on then they would quit like 20-30 min later. Now I can't get it to even turn on.

Did you find the solution to your problem? I dread trying to take down the fixture and troubleshoot.

Same, such an ordeal to bring it down and work on it. I've had to dig into the guts to replace the battery because it wouldn't hold time when power went out (didn't fix the problem) and it's a nightmare inside. I've been rolling with just the one pair for a year or more. Prob not going to mess with it, maybe looking at upgrade.

 

[nereefpat]

This is nuts bc I literally have the same issue with my aurora right now. Weird thing is that the ballast was firing up and working properly until I changed out to new bulbs. I have even tried using different bulbs. The lights would come on for a bit then turn off. I could fiddle the bulb and get the channel to come back on then they would quit like 20-30 min later. Now I can't get it to even turn on.

Did you find the solution to your problem? I dread trying to take down the fixture and troubleshoot.

That sound more like a loose connection, maybe in the wiring or more likely the tombstones. I say this because it happened after changing bulbs and because the lights go on and off. Flickering would be a ballast, but probably not running for 20 minutes.

For testing ballasts, I would think you could check the voltage on the output side. But, I would be very darn careful doing that with high voltage.

Changing a ballast is pretty cheap and easy. I would definitely replace a ballast before tossing our a T5 fixture. I have changed both ballasts in my 13 or so year old Tek T5 unit.

 

[Goubli]

Would you recommend changing out the tombstones? That should be fairly straightforward, correct? Is there a way to tell which of them are bad or should I just replace both of them at same time?

My T5 are 80W so just make sure to get the ones rated for such, or do I have to get something else given this is a german unit requiring a voltage adapter?

Or should I just get the ones from Giesemann and deal w the shipping cost?

 

[nereefpat]

I guess I would start with wiggling stuff, and inspecting connections everywhere. You may not need to replace parts, just secure connections. Replacing is straight forward, yes. All of the 60" T5s we use are 80 watts, so there isn't anything special there.

Like Oreo said, ballasts aren't too expensive either, compared to new fixtures.

 

[Goubli]

I really suspect it’s one of the tombstones. When lights would shut off after being on for 30min to an hr if I just slightly rotated bulb it would turn back on. Wash rinse repeat. Now i can get an initial flash but never a full turn on.

I just don’t know if tombstones from amazon would fit properly depending on how they are configured with screw holes and height so I can still fit the plastc water shield on.

 

[Goubli]

Update: I replaced all the tombstones with Giesemann parts. The lights never came back on despite using bulbs that I know are good. Got the same channel working and then hung the light up. Then two days later that channel stopped working.

I had to order new ballasts and am waiting for them to arrive. I had ordered the dimming ones but the company cx my order while I was out of town and I didn't see email until days later and then had to reorder non-dimmable. So we are going weeks now with only LED and the corals are starting to look not as nice.

This better work or I will be super annoyed as I have paid shipping for all of this stuff from Germany.

 

[nereefpat]

Dang. Good luck.

 

[PedroYoung]

Update: I replaced all the tombstones with Giesemann parts. The lights never came back on despite using bulbs that I know are good. Got the same channel working and then hung the light up. Then two days later that channel stopped working.

I had to order new ballasts and am waiting for them to arrive. I had ordered the dimming ones but the company cx my order while I was out of town and I didn't see email until days later and then had to reorder non-dimmable. So we are going weeks now with only LED and the corals are starting to look not as nice.

This better work or I will be super annoyed as I have paid shipping for all of this stuff from Germany.

How much did they charge for the non dimmable ballasts if you don’t mind me asking? There was an issue with the 80W dimmable ballast with 110VAC input when they originally released the fixture in that they weee super expensive so they supplied 220V ballasts with some type of step down unit. I have one of the original demo units that had 110Vac ballasts.

 

[Goubli]

They were cheaper than dimmable. 2 ballasts were 83 euro and all in with shipping around 114 euro. They are still processing the order for some reason and I have no confirmation of shipping which is really bugging me bc I now expect them to cancel this order too. It's a real pain to track down these ballasts.

 

[PedroYoung]

They were cheaper than dimmable. 2 ballasts were 83 euro and all in with shipping around 114 euro. They are still processing the order for some reason and I have no confirmation of shipping which is really bugging me bc I now expect them to cancel this order too. It's a real pain to track down these ballasts.

If it doesn't get resolved you might try to get coralvue involved. I think they're the US distributor for Giesemann. They helped me order some parts from Abyzz.