Ballast Help for you electricians!

I have a Coralife 48" compact that for some reason one end of the light fixture stopped working... both switches work the left two halfs but not the right side... so i think it is the ballasts right? well i bought a replacement ballast (2x65W) and rewired it so that i have one switch to run two ballasts to power 2 10k bulbs across the hole fixture and then the new replacement ballast to run two actinic bulbs (all compact lights btw..obviously) so i wired anything up and to no avail... no such luck... any insight? i can take pics if that helps... thanks, T

 

Yes, pictures please...

 

Pictures help, thanks. Each ballast circuit needs to be wired in parallel in relation to each other to the AC input. Chances are, you probably wired the ballasts in series.

 

did you try switching the bulbs around to verify its not the bulbs? did you check the wires going into the endcaps that connect to the pins on the bulbs to see if there loose? thats happen to me a couple times. usally with that unit, if you got the same replacement ballast it should just be plug and play.. fyi: I've gotten a bad ballast before when I ordered a replacement too. it does happen.

 

so... pics are out for the moment... in response to tigermike.. i am trying to go from having 4 ballasts to 3.. i have two switches one for each half/side of the light... i wired one side so that i am able to have the actinics turn on one switch and the 10 k's on the other... after i did that... the two separate ballasts (original ones that still worked) powering the 10k's, work fine. when i hook up the new replacement ballast (2x65w) and wire it up to the new replacement straight pin connectors and then to the bulbs... no luck..

The ballast looks like this one... i think this is it...
It has two pins on the input side for a line and a neutral... the other has 8 pins to plug the straight pin connectors to. The other question i have is i plugged the hot wires in to each line... reversed them...i am running out of ideas... any help?

 

bump...

 

My guess would be that something is wired incorrectly. Try switching ballasts around to see what that does. I am still not entirely clear on what it is you want to accomplish or what you have wired up right now.

Maybe you could somehow draw a quick diagram of what you have?

 

I attached a pic of the original setup and the ballasts on the right side were bad.. so i rewired it so that the ballasts on the left went from being on different switches to just one switch so that i can turn on the 10k and actinic lights separately on two different timers. well... those lights work of the two ballasts on one switch. But the new ballast that i got to replace the two bad ones is definitely getting power, but not putting any out to the bulbs... hope someone has an answer... i am so excited to start cycling this tank and get it going but i am going no where fast here.. lol..

the only other thing that somone mentioned before is that they sent me a non working ballast but i dont know if thats the case.. thanks guys!

 

im clueless on this. I always just replaced the same type of ballast with same dimensions and connectors. so it was just plug and play. sounds like a wiring issue, something is loose, or the ballast is bad. just opening those fixtures up can move a wire enough to short etc.. you may need to put everything back the way it was, and start over with replacement process.

 

trust me i am at a loss as well... i am almost ready to trash the light or just use half and buy a new setup... i thought i was saving money by repairing it myself... i have a feeling it is the ballast... i am gonna call them monday and see if i can get another or something... thanks night rida for the input... anybody selling a light setup.. lol