can you break half a ballast?

so for some reason this morning something told me to go in before they turn on and watch my lights turn on...dont know why but it worked out because one of them didnt turn on...its a valuline 1000w hps mh switchable, i had it in my veg for a while but recently moved it to my flower and switched from mh to hps and it worked fine for at least a month now and all of a sudden it doesnt work so i waited about 20 minutes thinking maybe it just takes a minute to turn on but still nothing so i took it out and cleaned it up real good and plugged it right into the wall instead of the timer and still nothing so i put the mh back in and it works just fine...anyone heard of this before or do you think its the bulb? the ballast i believe is under a warranty but i dont want to go out and have to buy another $100 bulb to find out my ballast is still broken....

Umm dude I thinj you need a bulb bro, ballast's dont break between metal halide or HPS unless you blew the fuse in it. But IMO I think its the bulb, and shop around you can find em a lot cheaper!

It is possible that just the igniter in the ballast is blown, but more likely you need a bulb. Simple and effective test is to take out your bulb, power up your ballast, and check the voltage at the socket with a Digital Volt/ohm meter. For a 1000w light, that voltage should be around 400v, for a 400w light it should be from 90-120v. If you have proper voltage, you need a bulb, if you get a reading thats roughly half of what it should be, or maybe even less, you need an ignitor.

If its just the HPS bulbs that wont work and the MH works fine then its probably the ignitor.

well i switched the bulb into a different ballast and it works fine so im guessing its the ignitor, is that easy to replace? or will the mh part still work as good either way because i need to get another mh anyway so i could just move that one and get a new hps maybe? or should i just try to fix it anyway?