Wiring plug to Mercury High Intensity ballast

Dustin

I bought a Mercury ballast at a garage sale and want to connect a plug for a strong outside light. The type of lamp is a 400watt mercury made by Lighting Systems Incorporated. It appears it was hard wired for out-door use at a gas station. It is 120 volt and is rated for 460 watts and 4 amps. The model # is MA-400-SMH-120, serial # 47899. There are two wires that are disconnected and bare, one is black and one is yellow. Is the black the ground? I cut off a cord to a surge protector which has three colors; black, white and green. Do I hook the 2 blacks and the white to yellow and just cap the green? I was unable to find any wiring diagram for this lamp or find the company, can someone please give me some insight?

jwhite

green is ground.

Check the output voltage. anything more than 1000 volts from the ballast is illegal in a home. those are comercial/industrial only fixtures.

__________________
Master Electrician

frenchelectrican

Just give ya a quick warning about MV /MH lumiaires make sure you have proper bulb for this ballast and also make sure it dont have any crack on the bulb at all.

The other thing if you turn it off and try to turn it on back fast you have to wait anywhere from 8 min to 45 min depending on type of bulb and lumiaire set up.

Also those lumiaires is not very " quiet " type they will buzz to some degree if you mount it outside the noise will be not too bad but if inside of the garage forget it. the buzz like .

And the other thing about the lumiaire you have they will build up pretty good amout of heat as well but not quite super hot like quatz halogen lumiaires is.

if more question just drop a line here

Merci , Marc

P.S. Jwhite,
The 400 w MV/MH secondary side open circuit voltage is useally about 250- 300 volt range just give ya a quick head up with it