I highly doubt that first the non GE caps say made for GE on it and secondly their HVAC and motor caps are of the exact same design.

Well the thing is GE actually MADE capacitors. And Jow you are right it is a GE capacitor, just the "Capacitor" got scratched off so I thought it was another brand.

Isn't this light a bit spacious? For a 250 watt HPS small fixture the insides have a lot of space.

And what is that stuff on the capacitor? Is that dirt or something? It's very sticky so I doubt it's dirt..

Possible the cap is leaking which could be another reason the light takes so long to come to full brightness! That could be what the thick sticky gunk is on the cap, the oil inside leaking

Well, at least there's no need to worry about PCBs.

It actually brightens up at a normal pace, it doesn't take long at all to brighten up. It gets a really bright white then turns yellow at the last second.

That's a interesting warmup sequence, mine usually turns dim yellow and then starts to brighten up.

I don't own any HPS, but the older M-250R2 in front of my house (when it first came on) was a blue-green color and then turned to a reddish-pink and then slowly shift to a dim stinky orange and finially brighten to a lighter normal orange glow. It was an older full mercury lamp. The new M-250R2 in front of my house has a lamp that starts off as a incandescent lamp with a pinkish-orange tone for about 3 seconds until it ignite and then goes into the dim stinky LPS liek glow and then the normal orange glow. It seems those new low mercury crappy lamps warm up faster and don't change colors as much. I think the older HPS lamps are more fun to watch turn on for the night IMO.

They use vegetable oil for these capacitors? The new capacitor I have says "Vegetable oil" on it so I kind of wonder...

And what are PCB's? I have been wondering that. What do PCB's do and are they harmful to your body?

Oh and here's what most recent GE caps would have used (the ones marked DIELEKTROL-VI).

But what are PCBs? ARe they harmful to your health? And I guess the new stuff they use for capacitors work better than PCB's enabling the capacitors to be smaller for for UF. Like for 20 UF in my M-1000 those two capacitors are pretty big compared to my new 20 UF capacitor which is pretty small.

They're pretty nasty stuff that's for sure, I think they were banned in ballasts sometime around the late 70s or so.

Oh and I think another reason why the cap sizes shrunk over they years is that the improved dielectric material inside the cap dosen't need to be so bulky anymore.

What do PCB's smell like? Would there be PCB's in 1972 capacitors? I hope when I picked up some capacitors in that demolition site I didn't get any PCB's on me.. Cause after I touched those capacitors I had a smell on my hand for a while...

Hmm if it's from '72 then they should have PCBs, I'm not sure how they smell like but they should look like a pale yellow oil. There should be someone else on here who should be able to provide more info if they chime in.

Is vegetable oil ever used for capacitors? The one I got from China seems to say "Vegetable Oil" On it.

Probably isn't the best capacitor, but I hope it works.

Well, I personally never heard of this though. I would keep an close eye on it when running though.

I wonder... Why on the M-250 R2's they usually use single tap ballasts but on the M-400 R3's they use Multi-Tap ballasts? I don't get it. I have yet to see a multi-tap ballast in an M-250 R2.

All the M-400R3's we get in at work are single tap at 120 volts. It's just preference in how they are ordered. Also, the MDOT have used multi tap M-250R2's on the interstates.

What is the most common voltage used for streetlighting today? I notice Denver uses a lot of 120 volts... Almost everything I see is 120 volts which is good cause I can light them if I get a fixture. xD

I'd say it's all in the utility's preference, but most of the lights here were 240V until the 90's and we've used 120 volt lights ever since.

The streetlights in my area are all wired for 120 volt.