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Matt,
The ballast sounds fine from your description.
The grounding you have may not be sufficient. For one thing, the entire system needs to be at the same ground potential to work optimally. Additionally, the ground is used to help strike an arc in the lamps, and it needs to be continuous the entire length of the lamp. I recommend trying this...
Take a piece of bare copper wire, and run it parallel to the lamps behind each lamp, and connect it to the metal brackets on each end. You can staple it in place, but make sure it does not get crossed with any of the lead wires, and connect it electrically to the metal on both ends.
If that doesn't do it, you may want to try running it in a marmer room, and see if that solves the problem.
---Michael
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 Originally Posted by Michael Mutmansky
The grounding you have may not be sufficient. For one thing, the entire system needs to be at the same ground potential to work optimally. Additionally, the ground is used to help strike an arc in the lamps, and it needs to be continuous the entire length of the lamp. I recommend trying this...
Take a piece of bare copper wire, and run it parallel to the lamps behind each lamp, and connect it to the metal brackets on each end. You can staple it in place, but make sure it does not get crossed with any of the lead wires, and connect it electrically to the metal on both ends.
If that doesn't do it, you may want to try running it in a marmer room, and see if that solves the problem.
I'll try this.
I was confused about how to ground the ballasts & if I even need to. The wiring drawing on the ubildit page shows a grounding wire connected to a screw in the ballast flange (where I screw it to the board). I've grounded each ballast like this as well. Is this the correct way to ground the ballast? Or do I need to have a ground on them?
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This has been very helpfull...as the electronic ballast for F20T12's are Very Hard to find. Also, the ground is most interesting..Michael are you saying that a seperate ground should be used for the bulbs/sockets in addition to the ground that you use for the ballast? Or just make sure that the ballast have proper grounding, and that should work OK?
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Matt,
Look on the label for the ballasts. They probably show the housing going to ground.
If so, then you should use the grounding wire in the flange, but make sure there is a good electrical connection there, make sure there isn't paint on the flange that will interfere with the electrical continuity.
Good luck on the exposure unit. I hope you quickly get the problems worked out, and move on to the fun stuff.
---Michael
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I got it working. I ended up cutting a piece of sheet metal to line the top of the exposure chamber behind the bulbs. I tied the sheet metal into the ground and walla, the lights came on. IMO the Edwards ubildit plans are flawed by not including this. Now I guess I need to paint the metal white?
Thanks for the help everyone. I can't wait to use it now.
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Matt..i too built a UV box from the eepjon plans and have had an issue where some of the tubes dont turn on immediately (i have to jiggle a few of them around to get them to turn on)...if i do like you and put a piece of sheet metal behind the bulbs, how does it get wired into the ground? do u mean the ground for the ballasts or some connection to the bi-pole sockets?
thanks
-andrew
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I just wrapped the stripped end of a ground wire around a screw & screwed it into the metal, 1 at each end. The other ends of the 2 ground wires were tied into the power cord ground wire. Seems to work, but there may be a better way.
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i'll give that a try..thanks matt
-andrew
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Again, again, and again
Hi everyone:
I am almost there to finish the UV box. There is one more thing about it that I want to make sure before I do it. It is about the ground.
I have read this thread, and there is a couple of things that are not quite clear to me. Here's the images of my ballasts with other wires.
1) If I were to put bare copper from one end to the other, I will do it in the direction of A. Am I right on this. Or can it be in the direction of B as well? Or does it matter? When I do this, I am connecting these screws, right? Also, is it a problem if the wire touches ballasts?
2) If I were to put a sheet of metal on the back of lamps, what exactly am I connecting to? It is those screws which hold the sockets? Or do I need to connect it to the screws holding ballasts?
Thank you again for your help as always.
Warmly,
tsuyoshi
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*bump* can anyone answer this...
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