after a year of no problems, my HPS ballast keeps tripping breakers. help?

Hi there, ive been having a hell of a morning troubleshooting this problem and decided to reach out for a little assistance hopefully
So I've got a 1000w new(1year old) lumitek ballast I've been running along with a small AC unit on a 15amp circuit for the last year or so. All of a sudden, this morning I go to see that the breaker has been tripped.
So, I unplug the ballast, go flip the breaker back on and find that, cool, the AC unit is back up and running. So I unplug it, and plug the ballast in its place, all alone on the circuit now, and it immediately trips the breaker. Hm, ok, so, I unplug the ballast and plug it in on a different 15amp circuit and it immediately trips that breaker.
I've only got 2 circuits in reach of the ballast cord and apparently the ballast trips them both the instsnt it clicks on.
It's one of those ballasts with adjustable wattage and even with the wattage turned all the way down it flips the breaker.
So! What to do? And why would this problem just start up like this after a year of perfect operation?
Thanks a ton for any help.

Warranty it. It could be a short on the ballast itself, and your arc fault interrupter steps in and kills the breaker.

No matter the issue if you have tried it in two separate breakers it is time to warranty.

^^^^^^^^^^ Yep, last thing you need is an indoor fire.

got a short, be REALLY careful, and DO NOT plug it in again, you don't want 115v blasting through you @15amps.... you never know where that short is going, if it decides to go though your arm..... it's bad Mmmmkay.

Cool, thanks guys.
Called lumitek support and got the warranty info sorted out.

When you get your new ballast use both 15 amp circuits. One for the ballast and one for the AC. You are really pushing the limits of a 15amp circuit running both on a single circuit. Risky business for sure.

sorry to reserect this thread but i am having the same problem with 2 1000 watt Digibrite ballasts. As soon as i plug it in the breaker trips. that is with nothing on the circuit except for the ballast at 8.6 amps on 120v.

Same problem as Golden Trikes.
anyone know who makes these ballasts? i bought them second hand and they both worked for 2-3 months and then one day poof no more ballasts.

any help on this one as well would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

suparobg said:

sorry to reserect this thread but i am having the same problem with 2 1000 watt Digibrite ballasts. As soon as i plug it in the breaker trips. that is with nothing on the circuit except for the ballast at 8.6 amps on 120v.

Same problem as Golden Trikes.
anyone know who makes these ballasts? i bought them second hand and they both worked for 2-3 months and then one day poof no more ballasts.

any help on this one as well would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

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Test each ballast separately. Try a different circuit. If the ballasts work, it's a bad breaker. If they keep tripping different breakers, the ballasts are bad.

ya i tried different circuits and both the ballasts trip the circuits. so is there anything that i can fix or buy to fix these ballasts? or are they just paperweights now?

anyone know who produces Digibrite electronic ballasts