Oh cool. The older American Electric lights used different igniters but this would work. Was this the auction you bought from?

Nope, it was THIS one.

Interesting that AEL used the same ignitor for 55v and 100v arctube HPS lamps. Normally they use different ignitors.

See my other pic. In order to use the ignitor with 150w or higher, you have to remove that jumper wire.

Yeah most open board replacement igniters are "universal" igniters so you have to remove a jumper. The GE igniters i get on eBay if i get them will be 35-400W universal igniters.

expensive! i can get ignitors free...from work! i have tested a few different brands on different ballasts and they work with no issues, they just have to have the right lamp type ignitor and wattage, matter of fact i have a ignitor that is a universal with a label over it saying" southwest lighting systems" ignitor for 35-450W HPS lamps

I've never had a ballast with a open board ignitor so I didn't know they had a jumper to select the wattage. And yeah different brands of ignitors will work for the same wattage. I once tried a 70w Advance HPS ignitor on a Caster 70w HPS ballast and it worked fine.

Me neither. My only two HPS lights are the Cooper OVC with the black Kooper Kube igniter and the 70W HPS Cooper yard light i used to have before i gave it to Niall. The Westie 400w HPS ballast has a westie cube igniter. The 250W HPS ITT ballast from George's ITT 13 had a bad igniter so it has a new Luma igniter (just a rebranded Advance one) and it works fine. George had sent me an open board igniter with it but it turns out that was bad too. I don't think i still have it anymore... They still make the regular 55V only and 100V only igniters though as far as i know. I guess for replacement purposes it's easier to make a one igniter fits all deal (well except for 750W and 1000W HPS igniters. what voltage do they strike at?) The universal igniter thing makes me even more angry that the Grid doesn't replace igniters. Even if they only replace GE igniters, most of the lights here are GEs. Not only are they plug in, there's only one igniter they need to stock! Why! Time is money so unplugging an igniter and plugging a new one is is faster than replacing the whole fixture. Oh well...

I guess most OEM ignitors are still 55v only and 100v only but yeah for replacements a universal ignitor is a lot more handy. IIRC the 750w and 1kW HPS uses a 5kV ignitor so they also use a more beefy socket too.

Yeah, I'm not sure why they won't replace ignitors too, the plug in ones take the same time as changing a lamp or a PC to replace. I think they should at least keep the GE plugin ones on their truck.

Oh and I never got why plugin ignitors were never really that common or standardized like how fluorescent starters are.

yeah any preheat starter will fit any preheat fixture (except for T17 fixtures and starters and those odd edison screw starters) but with igniters, different brands won't plug into other brands. Cooper and AEL don't have plug in igniters standard like GE (AEL offers it though) but their starters use slip on connectors and spade so it's pretty easy to replace if you have a pair of pliers to pull the slip on connectors off the spades since sometimes they can fit quite snugly.

Hmm, I thought with preheat the starters still came in two basic types FS-2 and FS-4 since both have different trigger voltages, but yeah FS-2 is mostly compatible with all preheaters with choke ballasts while FS-4 is compatible with most preheaters that use step-up ballasts.

The later Powerlites had plug in ignitors, but you needed a screwdriver to unscrew it from the housing.

oh no they aren't interchangable electronically but physically you can swap them and they'll fit unlike HPS plug in igniters from different brands. interesting about the powerlites having plug-in igniters. Since they used other brand ballasts i figured they were the plastic can style with the permanent leads.

Well my B2255 had a ignitor with a metal can but the R47 (and Vince's R37) had a plastic plug in ignitor.