The one on the right, it has a shiny coat of paint.

THe left. It's a lower wattage and has the origional paint. The one on the right has paint on the NEMA tag.

Well, he could get a new tag.

Still, the 250 watt one hasn't been Ianified yet, so it like it better. After the internals are messed around with it kind of ruins the light IMO.

Well I am not as bad as David F! If he gets a fixture 250w or above (any kind of light source) He replaces the ballast completely. He completly "Davidfies" his lights. Out of his four cobraheads, only ONE is still the original and that is his 113 cause it was 70w HPS originally. xD So don't rag on me!!!

And Michael, you have taken your lights completly apart! So here.. I have 9 cobraheads, and EIGHT of them have the original ballast in them. xD (M-250 R2 is pretty much exempted from everything since it is FAR from original, cause It has been from parts I found on the ground, parts I bought on ebay, and parts darren sent to me. xD SO pretty much I can say my M-250 R2 is just pieces and parts from all different fixtures.)

I'm guilty of "converting luminaires to meet 347v Electric performance standards" too but I save all the old stuff that I pull out and I try to wire fixtures as close to original as possible such as using terminal blocks, wiring the PC socket in even though it's not used, and using slip on connectors.

I usually only replace ballasts in HPS lumes though, if I came across a merc lume I'll leave it as is even if it's a 1kW B2213.

Yes Ian he changes the ballast. Nothing wrong with that. He doesn't take it out for fun though and mess around with the wiring. and I awlays put my lights back together EXACTLY how i found it. i don't change around the ballasts, or mess with the actual fixture.

I have taken a bunch if my fixtures apart mainly for cleaning and painting. I have put after market stuff in them because the originals are shot. I don't see any problems with tinkering since it's a cool way to learn more about the fixtures.

I don't either, but if you do it too much, things can break, things can stop working, etc.

My new M-400 R2 I just took apart to clean. It was dirty in there and lots of sticks and stuff! When I open it today it smells like dead bugs! I am going to have an update of the insides after my wire-fixing. I won't be taking this fixture apart over and over, I want to keep this original. I have kept most of my other lights original. And Remember, my first M-400 R2 was my first light. I got it like 8-10 YEARS ago! When I first joined Lighting-Gallery was the first time I started messing with the light.

And one consequence for me taking that M-40 R2 apart so much... I got a screw piece stuck in there (because the top broke) And I have stripped a lot of screw-holes. so heh.