Nope MV and probe start MH will light on a 400W HPS ballast and it won't hurt the lamp unless you do a hot restrike. If you hot-restrike the lamp and the igniter is connected, forget it. Bryan had run a 400W Mh lamp on the Westie 400w HPS balalst he gave me so i wonder if that's what killed the capacitor. Anyways, the stupid cap is near impossible to find. The only one i've found was 50 bucks for a lot of two used GE caps. With caps i personally only would buy a new cap since who knows how a used cap will work.

Yeah 400w HPS has a higher OCV so MV and MH lamps do run on them but I believe the current is different which might kill the cap or the ballast.

i guess i know what probably killed by capacitor now. he had always ran it with a 400W metalarc so when i had finally ran the correct lamp the cap must've gone.

Oh if you're still in contact with him be sure to tell him that HID ballasts can only run the lamp that's listed on the label or you'll risk blowing something out.

Anyway if you need a cap and Aaron dosen't have a suitable one, this should fit your ballast. Looks like it's NOS from 1985 so you don't have to worry about PCBs.

No i haven't talked to him since he left the site since this was the only way i had contact with him. we were supposed to meet up at his house but it never happened. Oh tht cap looks like an exact match for the existing cap! Pretty close to the same age. It's $21.25 with shipping so it's a good deal.

Ahh, I was thinking you had his email or something. It seems he's still active on flickr though. It looks like that's the cheapest new one I could find though.

oh wow yeah. the cap you linked is pretty decently priced. I should probably buy it but even if my westie ballast worked right i wouldn't be using it too often since it's just too heavy. I can only imagine if it was in a fixture. O_O it was originally in an L-250. MAybe someday I'll get an L-150. The L-150 and L-250 are basically the same fixture but i like the L-150 better since it's smaller and i prefer the more squared off OV-15 refractor versus the rounded OV-25 refractor with the boxy fixture design.

Heh, I like collecting the smaller fixtures too since they take up less space. Anyway you should for the cap if you have some extra money for but if not I would bookmark the page for later. I guess if you ever found a modern fixture with a dead ballast you could stick in it that. (That or convert your M-400 to HPS )

Yeah I'm pretty tight on money. I want to be able to get a car when i'm 16 so i need to start saving up and stop adding to my collection lol. That's why the idea of restoring and selling removed lights from the electric company interested me. It's a way to get a little extra money and have some fun while doing it! And nope the GE stays MV lol I wouldn't be able to lift the thing up if the westie ballast was in it. The westie ballast probably weighs as much as the M-400 does (with it's Mv ballast and glass lens installed). just a lot more compact. You can't carry it with one hand. Maybe i just need to start working out lol.

when i got a car my collection really started growing!

Well as long as i don't have to spend a red cent, any all all additions are welcome but for now the spending is done lol. Only for small inexpensive parts and stuff. I'm gonna have to look for a job at 16 too. I plan to join the IBEW but i need to wait until 18 to do that so for a couple years I'll probably be a carriage boy at the supermarket or walmart or something fetching carraiges out in the parking lot in the rain and snow lol

yeah my first job i didn't get till 19 and that was kmart, it was ok, i restocked stuff usually, sometimes i was cashier and got carts

Ahh yeah my mom said she wants me to look for work as soon as i turn 16. BTW carriages are shopping carts lol. I'm speakign Rhode Islandese lol. Shopping carts are carriages, drinking fountains are bubblers, and for the really native people TV remotes are "clickers" lol. I call it a remote but whatever lol. I've gotten "what?"s and "Huh?"s when i go on vacation becuase people don't know what I mean when i say carriage or bubbler lol.

our hot dog buns are on the left side versus what everywhere else apparently uses. I thought everywhere had the same kind of hot dog buns lol
i guess another RI thing is coffee milk? I love it but it's not sold anywhere else! I hope you guys have coffe ice cream becuase if not you don't kno what you're missing.

interesting! we Michiganers just point to the hand as to where we live in the state
dont think we really have any special slang though other then pop instead of soda or whatever they call it these days

lol yeah i've heard somthing like "MI is the only place where you can use your hand as a map" or something like that lol

Interesting stuff. Over here we mostly use pop too lol. Found this interesting map too.

I've never seen one of those RI hotdog buns too.

Here's some err Toronto slang and stuff

double double: two teaspoons sugar and two creams in your coffee
Our milk comes in bags instead of jugs and you need to buy a holder called a milk jug to use the bags.
Snowbird - retirees who go to the US, particularity Florida during the winter.
Hydro: The power company
Loonie and Toonie the $1 and $2 coins.
Tuque hat that kids usually wear during the winter

24 - 24 can pack of beer
Smarties here are like M&Ms We do have these but they're called Rockets.
Toronto still runs a bunch of streetcars (trolleys/trams) on their streets.
Apparently the US dosen't have Kinder surprise or ketchup chips.
There's a popular dish here called poutine which is fries, gravy, and cheese curds all mixed together.
Kraft Dinner, KD is the mac and cheese that comes in the cardboard box.
Postal code = our zip code

College here usually means community college instead of university
We use grade ## instead of ##th grade.
The freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior terms are uncommon. The grade is used instead for high school and the year for university (1st year is also called frosh)
Some people call parking garages Parkades
Washroom seems to the most common instead of err toilet and restroom
Some older people call a can a tin
Same thing with calling candy sweets
ATMs are also called ABMs
Eavestroughs are the rain gutters on the side of your house.
Homogenized milk is what we call whole milk

TO, Hogtown, Centre of the universe = Toronto

Oh and here Z is pronounced zed instead of zee.

Yeah we tried Ketchup potato chips when we were up there. At a first try it was nasty but they weren't too bad after a few chips lol. yeah we have Kraft mac & cheese in carboard boxes too. I've heard postal code and zip code used. Yeah older people here call cany sweets. i don't know what homogenized milk is but i see skim milk, 1%, 2%, and whole. We buy 1%.

Heh, ketchup chips taste really unique for sure. It's funny how everyday phrases and things are so different even within the US and Canada lol.

I'm sure you guys will find our milk bags instead of the jugs a bit odd but they seem pretty normal to me.

Oh and Mike, I forgot to tell you in my last post but I shrunk down your hot dog bun pic since it stretched out the entire page.

Here in Alaska we refer to the continental US as the "Lower 48"
Next time I make it down to CA (perhaps at christmas?) I might get that M-400A.

@ Joe; yeah they don't taste like fries and ketchup thats for sure... Yeah i tried to resize it with the brackets. i did [img width=600]http://imgageurl.com[/img] but it didn't work. I jsut got the ( ... )

Good luck on that M-400A! those older HPS lights are very heavy mammoths for sure.

BTW, i built my streetlight pole/arm/base today. it's in my room holding up my M-250R1. pics to come.