Light on the blink

Anonymous-0 · Feb 23, 2009

My high pressure sodium yard light is on the blink literally. It will light then after ten to 15 minutes it will go out. After a minute or so it will start back up again then the whole cycle starts again. Could this ba a bad bulb or is the balast kaput?

Anonymous-0 · Feb 23, 2009

That is typical end of life operation for the lamp. Replace it at once or turn the fixture off until you can fix it because there is a component called an ignitor that has a finite number of attempts to start the lamp built into it and every time it cycles like that it uses up another attempt.

BLinWMI · Feb 23, 2009

I don't know what type of lamps you have dealt with. I do maintenance for a restaurant chain that has on average 12 lamps per location at 212 locations. All that is in the fixture housing is a capacitor, the ballast and the socket. If the light is photo sensitive it will have the optic eye also. I don't know what you are considering an ignitor.
It is possible that what it is doing is a result of the ballast going bad. It is not the lamp going out. When a lamp goes bad it will not light at all. It is also possible this time of year, if the fixture has a photo optic sensor, that there is snow on the top of the eye housing. It will light as normal but the eye gets light reflected back to it from the snow and will shut off thinking it is day light. Then a few minutes later after the ballast cools down, it will relight. I have seen fixtures that will do this cycle for hours or at least till the snow is removed.

pete black · Feb 24, 2009

in the electric utility business this is called cycling and is nearly always the bulb.

Jeff NWOH · Feb 24, 2009

I"d say it is probably the bulb. We"ve got 1000 W fixtures at work (not sure exactly what they are) and when they start cycling a new bulb always cures them.

Light on the blink

Anonymous-0

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Anonymous-0

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BLinWMI

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pete black

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Jeff NWOH

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