Hi bay fittings.

[sparkyrj]

Hi,

A customer of mine has a building with about 35 high bay metal halide light fittings. After a power dip, which can be a regular occurance some of these dont come back on after a cooling off period.Some are Philips fittings, and these are fine, but the majority are cheaper fittings. Some come back on ok, some will come on after removing the fuse for a minuite or so and a few only come back on after unplugging the klik rose for 30 seconds or so.Turning off the switches does not work. The manufacturers have no idea why this happens. Has anybody else had the same problem.

 

[Doc Hudson]

Can't offer much real help, but when you say power dip, do you know how much of a power dip and for what duration? What is the phase splitting across the various lights, i.e. are the 'faulty' ones all on the same phase and the 'good' ones on another phase?

Doc H.

 

[Riggy]

My guess would be a high resistance neutral (i.e. floating above 0V)

 

[Evans Electric]

Not with High Bay fittings Sparkyri , as you say , after cooling off they should strike up again. Can often be 10 - 15 minutes . Why is there a difference between switching off ........ pulling the Klick & pulling the fuse ? Pulling the Klick removes the neutral but that shouldn't make a difference.

I had the problem with some Metal Halide track fittings in a shop in Oxford . The lights were going off at lunchtime and they couldn't get them on till the next day.

I'm thinking , Time Switch somewhere, but couldn't find one.

What I didn't know was that if you switch them off , then quickly back on , they lock out and will never strike again while the switch wire is live. Hence they were OK next day after switches were turned off. You had to leave the switch off for 10 mins to get to work.

For some reason a staff member felt it necessary to flick the switches off & on at lunchtime.

The makers however knew nothing about this.

 

[sparkyrj]

The power dip is probably for 2 0r 3 seconds Doc.The fittings are spread across all three phases, and come from 2 different Dis boards.Deke, this sounds similar to my problem, the lights here are on 24/7 so dont get switched off . Its just strange that some will only come on after the rose is unplugged and some with just the fuse. still its all work i suppose it just means getting the scissor lift out each time.

 

[MajorOak]

When there is a power dips, can you switch all the lights off for 20 mins then switch them back on and see if that makes a difference? Maybe better than getting the lift out?

Or better still after the power has dipped leave for 20 mins then turn the lights off and on? The Philips lights will do their thing again, i.e. you created a power dip, but if the others have locked out it will switch these back on.

 

[Evans Electric]

You say they are on 24/7 I noticed in the instructions with the fittings that it says, "If fittings are on permanently they should be switched off for 15 mins (Either once per week or once per Day) can't remember which.

Also can't remember the reason for this , possibly to increase lamp life .

 

[sparkyrj]

Ill have to try that next time, trouble is the forklift drivers moan as it is with some of the lights out.We have thought about fitting double pole switches to simulate unplugging the klik roses but its quite low on the owners ies priorities at the moment.

 

[MajorOak]

It sounds as if they have under-volt protection and need to be power cycled in order to re-start them, as Evans Electric mentioned. If they have it's a pretty poor design for a hi bay fitting.

 

[Andy™]

they will not strike again until they have cooled down.

some may have an ignitor which gives up trying to ignite after so many attempts - i.e power goes off, then it tries to strike whilst hot & fails, then shuts down, and wont attempt a start again until the power is turned off then back on. but this time they are cold so strike straight away

you really should get the problem sorted though, but i guess its a DNO issue?