Toxic Fumes????

Okay, I have been on a search engine all morning and have found nothing, so I decided to bring it to the community for some insight. Basically It's like this, I am a first time grower started already and have just switched to 400w MH.
I bought this ballast off Craigslist and it seemed pretty solid to me. Has a sticker from HydroFarm,Label from Advanced and it says it is 100v(I am like fuck that's weird) Ordered a bulb from Plantmaxx(I know I know)and about 2 hrs into my 18 on cycle get a whiff of this gnarley smell that's kinda like elctrical but not,(hard to explain) so I check the ballast it's warm but not overly so,give it a sniff and I don't smell it. So I am thinking it's the bulb a smell it and nothing.I know there some bad vapors in the bulb but logic tells me it wouldn't run if there was a crack in it letting vapor out. I don't know...if anyone has had a similar experience,let me know. I have a wife that's preggers and am kinda worried. Is it the ballast burning off that new car smell?? Thanks SOHIGH

could be anythin. i would try to find the source of the smell. good luck

Well I have it narrowed down to either ballast or bulb. The smell wasn't there yesterday morning and started when those 2 were fired up. You ever had a new ballast smell funny for a couple of days/

its possible, but im unsure

is the ballast resin sealed or sealed in a metal box. if its in the box take the metal shell of andcheck the wires for any melting or scorch marks. if i had to use the ballast but was worried about fumes and fire id put the ballast on a patio slab and run an exttractor fan with ducting sucking air from around the ballast until you found the root cause of the smell. my resin sealed ballast smells plasticky when its running but thatsnormal as all of my ballasts smell that way

Thanks for the input everyone, I identified it as being the ballast. It is sealed in a metal box,so for tonight I will just kepp a really close eye on it until I can yank it out of there to open her up. I am wondering if they spray something on the inner workings that gasses off when it heats up because it is slowly dying down.

when i got my first HID bat wing reflector it had a plastic film on the batwing I could not see til the bulb scorched it. smell had me worried til i discovered it and pulled it off. They always put unecessary shit on these products so be careful. goodluck

Thanks ounevin, I built my parabolic myself so I knew it wasn't that but I appreciate the heads up.

Problem Solved, and man do I feel stupid. All a long the answer was staring me right in the face, my eyes were just to bloodshot to focus I guess. So I go to unscrew the case to see if I have any wires melting and glance at the voltage of the ballast. 100v, now that doesn't sound right, ding ding genius. This was wired for use in fucking Japan,and here I am dumping an extra 20v into this transformer and just shitting all over it with my great big 120v american wang. Long story short Bro's, don't smoke and buy. Buy and than smoke.

ounevinsmoke said:

when i got my first HID bat wing reflector it had a plastic film on the batwing I could not see til the bulb scorched it. smell had me worried til i discovered it and pulled it off. They always put unecessary shit on these products so be careful. goodluck

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I had this same issue. My reflector had a blue film on the inside of it that I didn't see. It took me until I changed the bulb from MH to HPS to figure out that it was the plastic film burning from the heat of the bulb creating the smell. FYI to anyone purchasing Apollo reflectors. Remove the blue film!