Ballast and Timer

[Indy]

My two 250W HQI lights are eached wired to one ballast box. That box has one power cord... and, that is where I probably need to put my timer. But, I'd like to fire up each light at a seperate time... maybe an hour later, giving more of a sunrise, sunset effect. My question is, can I put a timer between the ballast and the lights?

[wharyat]

NO! Unless that timer is rated for around 600 volts, you could burn it up and start a fire. How do you have these lights wired, is the ballast made to run two lights?? I have never seen such a ballast unless its a pfo that has 2 ballasts inside one big box. There isnt much you can do except run a relay between the ballasts and lights, I am not sure on your electronics expertise so I am not reccomending anything. Maybe others have different advice.

[davidc]

agreed, do NOT put a timer between the bulb and ballast.


If you're intent on doing this, take apart the ballast box (with no power, silly!) and see how easy it would be to split the input into two seperate inputs. If you can do that, then you can use a timer on one of the inputs.

[Indy]

That seems to be the way to approach it... I was thinking of maybe using a timer switch rather than the toggle switch on the large ballast box. But, I'll probably just use one timer.

Thanks for all the input.

[Doug1]

Unless you are very good with hi voltage and can understand electrical parts lists I wouldn't try this