VHO fire hazzard?

[Dr.King]

Has anyone had any experiences with Ice Cap VHO end caps starting "arcing" fires in their hoods? I was reading a thread on another reef forum that had multiple people experiencing fires from end caps on Ice Cap VHO ballasts. This seems very serious. Its one thing to lose a reef tank due to fire, but not even close to losing your house.

[Geoff]

i have not heard of anybody here yet.

G~

[gregt]

As long as the bulb is installed correctly in the endcap and salt creep cannot get to the connectors, I would not consider them to be a particular hazard. Of course, regular inspection every few months would be a good idea to be sure that there is not a problem you are not aware of.

IMO this problem is unrelated to icecap endcaps and is a general problem with electricity near saltwater mixed with poor installation and poor preventive maintenance.

[Rick O]

I have been using Icecap endcaps for years without problems. I have noticed that care must be taken to get the rubber seal installed correctly. It is also easy for that seal to fall out when removing the bulb. This would allow salt creep to get into the contacts of the bulb.

[yardboy]

And if you use GFCI you shouldn't have any problems like that either.

[asmith]

I had one endcap burn up, but it did not start a fire. It just killed the bulb. It was because the I didn't put the seals in right and salt creep got to it. I purchased new endcaps and installed them the way I should have the first time and have had no problems.

[Alice]

I took over maintenance on a tank once where the owner asked me to check the lights as they didn't seem "bright enough" anymore. I lifted up the canopy and about fainted. 2 of the end caps looked like marshmallows when you burn them in the campfire and then let them start to melt/fall off the stick! How the wood canopy didn't go up in flames I'll never know, the wood was pretty well scorched.

There was salt creep all over everything, btw.