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50W 12V MR 16 Ballast failures attributed to cheap lamps?

My customer bought about 60 track light heads about 2 years
ago. They are Lightolier 851WH, 12V 50W for MR16 lamps. Not
exactly the cheapos either. The ballasts inside are made by
BplusL industries in quebec.

There have been an unusual number of ballast failures, a 10%
failure rate in 24 months. The fixtures are in a retail
store mixed with many other different makes of track
lighting, some are the cheap made in china types.
It is only the Lightolier fixtures that are failing.

I phoned the ballast manufacturer because I wanted
to buy replacements direct. They wont sell to me because
they are not UL or CSA approved for sale separately.

They suggested that the ballasts fail because the customer
must be using "cheap lamps". They are saying that the cheap
lamps have inconsistent temperatures in the lamp filaments
and this causes the resistance of the lamp to rise. This in
turn causes the ballast to run at a higher output voltage
that will ruin it. Looking at the ballast circuitry there
pair of transistors (motorola BUH 50 specifically designed
for 50W 12 lamps) to create an oscillator that drives a
small toroidal transformer. I have not examined the
circuitry to determine whether the story the ballast people
told me would be realistic. I am not an expert at
electronics either.

Does this sound like a snow job? I know the customer well
and they say that they do not use the so called cheap lamps.

Is there any validity to this story?
Is there anywhere that I can buy some inexpensive
replacement ballasts?

This sounds like poor engineering to me. Shouldnt a ballast
be designed to operate any quality of lamp?

Len Morrents
Canada

To e-mail me, remove all of the sevens from my address.

Chris
 
V

Victor Roberts

My customer bought about 60 track light heads about 2 years
ago. They are Lightolier 851WH, 12V 50W for MR16 lamps. Not
exactly the cheapos either. The ballasts inside are made by
BplusL industries in quebec.

There have been an unusual number of ballast failures, a 10%
failure rate in 24 months. The fixtures are in a retail
store mixed with many other different makes of track
lighting, some are the cheap made in china types.
It is only the Lightolier fixtures that are failing.

I phoned the ballast manufacturer because I wanted
to buy replacements direct. They wont sell to me because
they are not UL or CSA approved for sale separately.

They suggested that the ballasts fail because the customer
must be using "cheap lamps". They are saying that the cheap
lamps have inconsistent temperatures in the lamp filaments
and this causes the resistance of the lamp to rise. This in
turn causes the ballast to run at a higher output voltage
that will ruin it. Looking at the ballast circuitry there
pair of transistors (motorola BUH 50 specifically designed
for 50W 12 lamps) to create an oscillator that drives a
small toroidal transformer. I have not examined the
circuitry to determine whether the story the ballast people
told me would be realistic. I am not an expert at
electronics either.

Does this sound like a snow job? I know the customer well
and they say that they do not use the so called cheap lamps.

Is there any validity to this story?
Is there anywhere that I can buy some inexpensive
replacement ballasts?

This sounds like poor engineering to me. Shouldnt a ballast
be designed to operate any quality of lamp?

This really isn't a ballast. It is a power converter, sometimes called
an electronic transformer. Ballasts act as a current source, which is
required to run fluorescent lamps and other types of discharge lamps.
Electronic transformers act as a voltage source.

This is a snow job. If the electronic transformer fails with lamps of
slightly higher operating voltage are used, what happens when one or
more lamps burns out? Any decent design would not fail even if higher
resistance (lower power) lamps are used.

What does Lightolier say?
 
C

Clive Mitchell

They suggested that the ballasts fail because the customer
must be using "cheap lamps". They are saying that the cheap
lamps have inconsistent temperatures in the lamp filaments
and this causes the resistance of the lamp to rise. This in
turn causes the ballast to run at a higher output voltage
that will ruin it. Looking at the ballast circuitry there
pair of transistors (motorola BUH 50 specifically designed
for 50W 12 lamps) to create an oscillator that drives a
small toroidal transformer. I have not examined the
circuitry to determine whether the story the ballast people
told me would be realistic. I am not an expert at
electronics either.

They are talking shit!

They have obviously had a bad batch or a bad design of electronic power
supply and are trying to avoid the responsibility for them.

It doesn't matter how expensive a power supply is, if the design is bad
they fail. Some of the cheaper supplies are reliable simply through the
high throughput learning experience of the manufacturers.

Are the power supplies getting very hot in use? This seems to be a
significant pointer to an early failure.
 
They have obviously had a bad batch or a bad design of electronic power
supply and are trying to avoid the responsibility for them.



I did not buy the power supply manufacturers story. I would
have to agree that the failures are due to a poor design.
Funny how they all lasted through the warranty period, and
then started failing 6 months later.

I will call lightolier this week and see what they will
blame it on. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that
Mars is closer to Earth right now.

Thanks for the replys.

Chris


To e-mail me, remove all of the sevens from my address.

Chris
 
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