any ideas?

[Patto]

Had a fault on some canopy lights (250w metal halide) the fault was a snapped pyro at a joint box going out to the lights, the electrician decided that rather than get up to the lights to identify the cores he would just take a guess now the lights came on but the pyro feeding them got extremely hot even melting the outer sheath so he tried them the other way and its now fine so obviously reversed polarity. . My question is what would cause that??? Theres a choke ignitor and a capacitor aswell as the lamp, he had no explanation for it, and as im still a student im interested as to why....

 

[Patto]

After it got hot he swapped the cores and it then worked without getting hot so he disconnected it remade the pot off then put it all back together, he couldnt test properly as the lights are 20ft above and there was no access at the time, it was to windy to erect a tower he did test but said it wouldnt be accurate, thats not something I would do but that's me.

 

[Tidy Max]

After it got hot he swapped the cores and it then worked without getting hot so he disconnected it remade the pot off then put it all back together, he couldnt test properly as the lights are 20ft above and there was no access at the time, it was to windy to erect a tower he did test but said it wouldnt be accurate, thats not something I would do but that's me.

It has to be very windy to be too windy to erect a tower I think everyone appreciates it's not your fault however your gaffer seems to have (or have had in this instance) a very cavalier attitude to energising a faulty circuit. Mobile scaffold is a ball ache but i could probably build up a 20ft scaff in the time it takes some sparks to make off a successful pyro end!

Just remember learning how not to do something is a good lessen too.