? on high-pressure sodium lights

In the diagram at

near the middle of the web page, please point out the 'starter' or 'igniter'? Most HPS lamps have just a ballast and the lamp bulb, at least the ones I see.

Personally I'd strongly recommend not replacing the balast with anything other than the properly designed balast, matched to the bulb. Since you have made this change, I'd agree with your wife: the lamp is likely unsafe and probalby should not be used.

And replacing the ballast with a different one has what to do with the (mythical) starter? That leaves me confused...

Agreed.

And especially, no modification should be allowed that increases the brightness of the lamp unless the lamp is confirmed to be operating at the spec'd current. Presumably in this case, it there was some other problem resulting in reduced current. Brighter lamp -> higher temperature, which can result in a quick failure, hopefully not very explosively.

If there is no external igniter circuit, there may be one built into the lamp.

Don't believe everything you read in Wikipedia.

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"Samuel M. Goldwasser" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@repairfaq.org...

Hey all,

Thank you very much for the input, first of all. Secondly, I posted a JPEG of the starter (labeled "ignitor" on the cannister which holds the PCB and ciruit I am about to referrence) to ABSE on 2/2/10 at 3:30 PM. There pictured is the (failing) blue choke I replaced with a larger choke. The one I took out *looked* like it might be a 60 or 75 uH choke, and I put first a 100 uH choke in its place, and finally a 130 uH that would just barely fit into the (plastic) cannister. In testing, the choke did not seem to generate any heat, and my logic was as follows: if it did cause the starter (ignitor) to overheat it would bring about the demise of the NTE2419 SIDAC bi-directional thyristor diode immediately to it's side (on the right in the JPEG) thereby shutting down the circuit. Below the PCB (in the JPEG) is the ballast, which I did nothing with. Since I was replacing a passive component with a passive component, I wasn't too worried. Burn-in did not raise any suspicions (1/4 hour of operation in my workshop). I would send more photos (and try again to figure out this damn camera) but the light is currently in use. The experimenting I did with the light only seemed to show that a lower inductance choke resulted in a more "yellow" illumination, and a higher inductance gave a "whiter" light. I can bring it down if there is truly cause for concern, just hate to do so unnecessarilly. And there is nothing in the diagram referrenced above like the small circuit I was working on inside the cover of the lamp. Don't know what to think about that...

Thanks,

Dave

PS: Burn in was a 1/2 hour operation in my workshot, not 1/4 hour, as written above. My bad. Sorry.

Dave

Sorry, where did you post the JPEG of your circuit?

Changing anything in the starter shouldn't affect how the lamp runs.

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I posted it to alt.binaries.schematics.electronics on 2/2/10 at 3:30 PM. It was the best picture I could get out of my camera, but is still quite blurry/out-of-focus.

Thanks,

Dave

Dave, can you post the fixture's name and model information? Or a link to a reseller selling the same basic unit that one might be able to research the circuitry?

Can you post it to a photos web site? Althought the binaries groups are supposed to have binaries (hence the name!) many times not all mirrors and downstream servers carry the binary posts.

My newsreader doesn't get alt.binaries.schematics.electronics and Google Groups has almost no postings for that group.

Maybe upload to YouTube or one of the other public photo-hosting Websites?

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I use sendspace.com & then pass around the link.

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I'll see what I can do. From memory is a Regent 70W HPS Security light. Home Depot carries them. Has a brown "cap" and faceted canopy around the bulb, thus to spread the light without harsh shadows. Looking for the link to this product, but can't find it yet. Will keep trying...

Thanks,

Dave