Other than the neatness, how do you think I wired the ballast? The wires were clearly labled, and I used crimp on wire Joiners instead of wirenuts.

And how good do you think the ballast is mounted? It was kind of hard to mount it, I am not even sure how the brackets were made and what they are supposed to be on.

Looks very nice! The only thing I can't see is how you terminated the unused taps, assuming those are tapped off everything should be fine.

Those already had caps on them. The 480v one was pre-stripped and the 120v was capped, so I stripped the 120v and used one of my wire crimpers for the 480v one.

The tri-tap ballasts I have were also capped, the 347v lead had a cap, and the 277v & 120v leads had longer insulation that basically capped it too.

Crapped it? I think you meant capped it!

I dunno why every one BUT the 480v was capped, I guedd they thought the user would use 480v. xD

But why don't they just do what my cooper Multi-tap ballast did? Every wire on the OVZ ballast was attached to the ballast, but the input taps were just male slip on connectors popping out. They should do that with most ballasts with a wire attached to one of those male slip ons for the input.

I did mean capped. must be my spellchecker.

I wish I didn't need those brackets to mount the ballast.. It makes it look... A bit messy in there. Don't you think?

Not really. i think it looks great. you're just being to hard on yourself.

Well I guess you could make your own brackets with some of those aluminium strips from the hardware store.

I changed how the ballast was mounted.

But NOW the stupid REFLECTOR screw hole is stripped completely. I put a screw in it it won't tighten.

If the M-250 R2 didn't have a stupid one screw holding the complete reflector in I wouldn't have to tighten the screw so much to where it won't wiggle around and the reflector stays PUT.

Should I fix it with epoxy?

See? This is what happens when you mess around with your lights too much. You end up punishing yourself by ruining the fixture.

Try retapping the hole for a larger screw, or inserting one of these in the stripped hole.

you could also replace the screw that came with the light with a larger self-tapping screw.

Sometimes if the screw is also stripped, swapping it with an identical self tapping screw works too. I did that with the ground screw on my R47.

I remember stripping out one of the screw holes in the M-400 R2 (First one that is 400w HPS) and all I did was put some epoxy in it and let it dry for a while, and then the screw hole fit the screw in just fine again. I was thinking about doing that.

What is a self-tapping screw?

Don't you have google?! anyways, it taps the hole for the screw
THIS IS A SELF-TAPPING SCREW:


THIS IS A STANDARD SCREW:

The self tapping screw has a ridge on the end that taps the hole. You can buy some at a hardware store. I love self-tapping screws. That's why i use PVC when i make homebrew lights. All you need is a screwdriver and self-tapping screws.

Since Ian's trying to tap into metal these would be better:


They're called self tapping machine screws, you can tell them apart from the ridges on the end that helps to cut the threads. My Powerlite used that type of screws since the holes aren't tapped after casting.

every reflector in every M-250R2 i've worked with are always wiggly, just best to never over tighten screws in fixtures since the molding of the housing are very soft. for repairs, I would use a larger version like the screw joe showed you, should work fine.