Need some help from you more experienced guys

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[Nate C.]

OK, another light issue, the one that I did get to work last night, today, it took me plugging and unplugging the ballast about 15 times to get it to fire off, what's that mean?  Is the ballast bad?

[psa]

I've seen firing problems with bad connections, trying to fire them warm with no rest after shutting down, and mixing probe start and pulse start bulbs.  I've also had bulbs in the past which took a minute or two to start after the ballast turned on.  I've never experienced a ballast problem, but perhaps I've been lucky.

[tyler5g]

Might be a bad capacitor.  If they seem to start to fire and them go out, its a cap.

[Nate C.]

Might be a bad capacitor.  If they seem to start to fire and them go out, its a cap.

Sounds like what it is, can it be fixed easily?  I see a very brief flash from the bulb, then it goes out.  If I keep trying, eventually it lights and runs no problem.

HOWEVER....other than lighting and microbubbles, I appear to have a running tank!     The Chiller leak was a missing o-ring in the supply line union (knocked it out when I plumbed it in I guess.  I caught the missing one on the return from the sump, but missed this one.  I have started the chiller and it's already pulled the tank down about a degree (going to have to shut it down, as I'm cooling it to 75 to test it), and everything seems to be running.  Now, if I could just get the lights working, and the bubbles to go away...

Here's some pictures:

1st - 5 new footings to support the weight as per the Structural Engineer I talked with, and the chiller nestled between two of them

2nd - Colleen putting rocks into place

3rd - Fill'er up!

4th - Checking level across, off a little, but not enough to worry about.

[Nate C.]

More pics:

1st pic...hey...isn't this supposted to be fun?!?  Why am I not having fun?

2nd pic...OK, this is more like it.  Not so bad now that things are more-or-less working!

3rd pic...Sitting back, looking at the handywork

[Les]

Looking good Nate, I for one am glad to see you guys getting this thing in the house.

[dakota's dad]

wow

thats looking great keep it up

paul

[tyler5g]

Nice shot of you paying homage to the tank gods.  I t can't hurt.  As far as changing the cap, piece of cake. In the ballast housing you will see the power transformer and a usually round or oval looking silver thing.  Unplug the two leads, take to your local electrical supply store and buy a replacement.  I would reccomend Grainger. Should run about 6-8 dollars. 

[Nate C.]

Thanks guys!  We are excited to have it going.  So far so good...hope it stays that way, and really really hope these stupid bubbles go away!  They are everywhere!   

Thanks for the info on the cap John, I know what they are, just didn't know if they were anything special for these applications.  I'll try replacing it tomorrow, when things are open again.  I may try swapping it with the one in the other blueline ballast if they are the same.  Will see if that makes any difference.

[angelscrx]

Maybe no lights!