Icecap electronic ballast quick disconnect question

[Don227]

I just purchased an Icecap 250 watt electronic ballast. It came with a quick disconnect plug on it. I purchased the mating plug and now I need to put the mating plug on my custom made halide fixture. The wiring diagrams on the Icecap website and also on the ballast itself do not show the polarity of the quick disconnect plugs. In other words, I know where the green, black and white wires are supposed to go, but I don't know which color wires go to which pins on the plug. The plug on the ballast is not labeled. I don't want to open the cover of the ballast or cut into the cable because it might void my warrenty. Can anyone help?

[Wiskey]

That plug should only plug into the ballast one way,.. you shouldn't be able to reverse it.

Or are you talking about which colors are which inside your fixture?

Whiskey

[Don227]

I designed and built my fixture and I have 3 wires comming out via the cable: Green, white and black. The problem is not on that end. The problem is I have the new Icecap ballast which is a blue heatsink box with 2 heavey duty black insulated cords comming out of it. One cord is the standard 3 prong plug the plugs into a 120 volt outlet for power. The other one is a black cable with a molded on disconnect plug with 3 outlet (female) prongs. They are not different size prongs like a standard outlet/plug has which makes it easy to determine ground (center) from the other two different size prongs which are neutral and hot. They are all the same size so I don't know ground from neutral from hot. The Icecap cord is not labeled.

[Wiskey]

Well,.. normally the side that drives the bulbs has only 2 wires,.. and those wires are interchangable (meaning it doesn't matter which goes to which) and the ground goes to the case, and the case is connected to the ground from your wall recpetical.

I'm supprized that the output to the bulbs on an IceCap has 3 unlabeled wires, and I'm afraid I can't be much help - but I'm sure someone else can.

Sorry,
Whiskey

[Wiskey]

I did a quick google search and found this webpage on wiring a IceCap MH ballast,.. It also says there is only supposed to be two wires going out to the bulb,.. You don't have the ballast backwards do you?

http://www.diyprojectorcompany.com/o...ing_wiring.htm

Whiskey

[Loverotties]

plugs usally have the pins numberedor just plug the new side in and look at each wire and across from that is were say blue goes and so forth.

[crvz]

I also vaguely remember the ballasts having wiring info labeled on them, so check that out. Otherwise, I wired my own plugs in between my ballast and lamp, so I can't be much help without seeing pictures of the setup. Any chance of uploading a few?

[Don227]

I got in touch with a customer service rep at Icecap. He said the center contact is ground (green) and the other 2 go to the bulb. It does not matter where they go on the bulb because they are not polarized. I was supposed to have received an instruction booklet with the ballast which I did not get. That caused confusion for me because they did not label the ballast.
Thanks for all your help!
Don

[crvz]

Good to hear you got it figured out.