The background: I'm building a rig for an engineering project to age polymers, using UV radiation and water cycles. The power supply, water pump and actuator (use not relevant) are controlled via an Arduino.
The rig has worked in the past with Infrared bulbs (for a different project). I'm now switching to UV bulbs which require ballast and ignitor to run.

The problem: I wired up one bulb to begin with, the bulb turned on but after I turned the circuit off, the power tripped (large circuit breaker for the entire run of sockets in the laboratory).
Second attempt, checked the wiring and wired up both lamps in series. This time the bulbs did not turn on, but the power tripped again.

Ballast Link: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/lighting-ballasts/7840515/
Ignitor Link: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/lighting-ignitors/6677268/
UV Bulb Link: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/uv-curing-lamps/8298870/
Circuit diagrams for series and single bulbs respectively:


The only issue I can think of causing the trip is that I'm yet to properly earth the circuit. Similarly for the two bulbs not operating at all, I'd guess it was a more fundamental issue with running the lamps in parallel as shown, I've not seen a diagram online like this, I simply assumed it would be okay.

Thanks in advance, Adam

 

Your missing the capacitor. See http://www.kolmart.com/HID-Ballast-Wiring-Diagrams_b_4.html

The necessary size is written on the ballast.

 

Some of those want you to wait a long time for it to cool off before turning it back on.

 

Ah, I cant remember why I decided I didn't need the capacitor, seems stupid now. I cannot see on the ballast what the required size is however.
Still not sure why it would start with one bulb and not the second however?

 

Oops - Datasheet http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/160f/0900766b8160f97f.pdf 40 uF @ 250 V; If I have the right one. From your links.

I knew I saw it somewhere.

 

Ah of course! Thanks a lot.
Any idea why the bulbs would not turn on when in parallel as per my diagram? The capacitor shouldn't affect them starting

 

Off hand no, but I really suspect that the ballast is of some ferro-resonant design. See https://www.shapellc.com/electronically-controlled-ferroresonant.html for a more complex version.

One lamp and supply I had extensive experience with was an Arc lamp. It needed a 40 kV spike to start it and 22 V @ 40 A to run!

 

There are 2 kinds of bulbs probe-start and pulse start
The pulse-start need a starter The probe-start don't and if you put them in a pulse-start setup you need a new
bulb they never fire agin. But the bulb shows it to be a pulse start
This starter is not good for that bulb it's 400 watt you have 460 watt bulb.