Is my ballast broken?

This may be an electrical question, but I would love insight from anyone who may shed insight.

I have a ballast that is a HPS/MH switch.

Today it stopped working. Then came on for a minute every 30mins or so?

It has been colder than usual here in mid Jan so that might be the problem as the ballast may have got too cold?

I used to have the ballast on 24/7 and recently switched to 18/6 to save power. could that be the problem?

Is there anyway for me to test the ballast/light set up?

Insight is appreciated.

BM

Sounds like the bulb to me.

I didn't have an extra MH bulb kicking around so I switched the ballast to HPS and it still didn't work? With a new HPS bulb that is. I will try again though as I thought that was the problem too. I will try another MH bulb perhaps.

BM

Does it go off early only on the timer or when u plug it into the wall rec also. Do u run both hps and mh ? Is it the same with both lamps ?

I found the issue to be a larger electrical issue that has now been fixed.

Thanks for the help. It got me troubleshooting in the right direction and thus I found a solution.

BM

Glad you found the problem. ;0)

goodluck on the grow

most manufacturers of ballast recommend a cooling period of at least 1 hr a day so running 24/7 will shorten the ballasts life

yep that would be the bulb.

hey please let me know what the electircal issue was, I am having the exact same problem with my new setup 600 watt mh/hps switchable digital ballast.

Any help would be appreciated thanks