Got the ballast on 1000bulbs.com, tested it and it fires up nicely! Only problem I have right now is the capacitor is kind of loose, so I will have to do something about that later.
But now it finally matches the NEMA tag. It's a multi-tap ballast, but it's wired for 120 volts right now as that's what the house supplies.
If it were me I would have just ordered the cheapest 120V 100 watt HPS ballast they had lol. I just saw one for $19.84. So I'd probably say the one you ordered should be pretty good. I have never heard of that ballast brand before though.
I got the multi-tap one on purpose, I wanted the bigger ballast. I already have a spare 100 watt HPS ballast that is small, But I wanted the bigger ballast.
The original ballast this OVS came with was around the same size as this ballast, even though it was a 480v ballast.
I wanted a CWI ballast instead of the reactor, for one, the bigger ballast looks better, and it make it more original.
Ah I use wirenuts all the time. I use crimps sometimes but in certain cases wirenuts just work better. Yeah Fulham is an excellent company. Their ballasts are very good from what I've heard. LOL yeah I would have bought the cheapest one too
More expensive means better quality, though still cheap compared to the 100w HPS ballasts at Grainger, I mean those can top at 100 dollars so yeah. xD
But finally this light is nice, wondering if I should add a PC socket though, I would have to dig up the one I got though I have no idea where it is. xD But it would be a pain to drill that hole...
Not necessarily. Single tap ballasts are cheaper than multitap because they use less material. And more expensive could just mean they're making more profit or they don't make as many ballasts (if they buy their materials in huge massive quantities then the materials cost less to buy) I'd personally add the PC socket but if you want to leave it original then you don't have to. If you intend on keeping this indoors then you wouldn't need a PC anyway, though I personally think cobraheads look better with PCs.
Yeah take Sun-Tech for example. Their photocontrols are in the $9 to $12 price range, and DTL's are in the $5 to $7 price range, and Sun-Tech's have high failure rates now. DTL is the lowest-cost utility grade photocontrol manufacturer, and their photocontrols in my opinion, are the best out there. Mike knows what I'm talking about
LOl yeah FPolc/Sun-Tech hasn't been on top of their quality control lately. DTL really is good stuff. ALR seems good but I heard they're a pain to deal with. And Ripleys seem like they're good stuff too but they're on the expensive side.
Well if we are talking about photocells, what would be the best way to drill the hole for it? That is something I am not sure. Darren, how did you do it with the one I gave you again?
Is it a cast aluminum piece? Or is it a metal plate that can come out? Take the PC off another Cooper light you have and then measure the diameter of the hole. Then get a drill bit that looks something like this bit here (a hole boring drill bit) and drill the hole. Then just get a drill bit and drill the holes for the two screws, making sure to drill the screw holes just a hair smaller than the screw so that way the screw will thread itself when you screw it in. For mine and Darren's M-400A2s, I didn't have to drill any holes since the PC hole was already there and GE just stuck a black snap-in cover over the hole. So i just popped off the cover and then the PC socket went right in. The cover snapped on with three little clips which were easy to bend a littler to pop the caps off, though on one of the covers, one of the legs snapped off. It still stays on well enough though. This way if i ever get a GE fixture with a bad PC socket and I can't find a replacement, I can pop in one of the caps to fill in the hole.
What size would I need? I need the perfect size, too big it won't stay on, too small, and it won't fit, so I need to know what kind of bit I would need.
Well it's a Cooper light. All Cooper lights will be the same so you can measure the holes on one of your other Coopers and that's how big of a hole you need.
Well I got a photocell installed on this thing. Took lots of effort, but the socket is installed. Haven't wired the light for the socket yet though. I will do that later. The way I installed the photocell was not very neat, though you can't even tell from the outside.
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The original ballast this OVS came with was around the same size as this ballast, even though it was a 480v ballast.
I wanted a CWI ballast instead of the reactor, for one, the bigger ballast looks better, and it make it more original.
But finally this light is nice, wondering if I should add a PC socket though, I would have to dig up the one I got though I have no idea where it is. xD But it would be a pain to drill that hole...
I can see what I can do with drilling the PC hole, but I can't do it for a while.