Ballast wiring strip light problem, help needed please!

[L&L2205]

Hi,

Im new to this forum today, Im not an electrician but was given some advice from an electrician yesterday which has since proven to be wrong, but I urgently need some advice please!

I have a fish tank with a 120cm strip light, basically the old ballast is broken, I yesterday purchased a new ballast and the electrician who sold it to me said it would work if I just rewired it, replacing the old.

However, after trying every combination of wiring possible with the new ballast, I only managed to get a brief flicker of light before the circuit broke again.

There are just three wires to connect. Ive checked everything else works on the unit, Ive also changed the fuse on the plug.

Im boggled as to why I managed to get a brief flicker on the lights but not been able to get one again.

Any ideas? Id be very grateful for any advice as my fish are without light.

Lauren

Attatched are the pictures of the ballast and the wires.

 

[boatnik1]

Dont you all be confusing the lad now, the old ballast is obviously an electronic one so no starters he just needs to ask for an electronic ballast what will do 2 x 38watt lamps but worse case he may need to alter the endcap wiring to suit as we dont live in an ideal world

"HE" is called Lauren and says "he" is a girl.
We didn't know what the old ballast was, just the new one so had to ask if there was starters in the mix.

 

[Darkwood]

"HE" is called Lauren and says "he" is a girl.
We didn't know what the old ballast was, just the new one so had to ask if there was starters in the mix.

Oops Sorry Lauren i just changed your gender without realising hope its wasnt too painful, please forgive me

 

[L&L2205]

Oops Sorry Lauren i just changed your gender without realising hope its wasnt too painful, please forgive me

Dont worry, Im fine!

The saga ended today, here's what happened.....

I went to the electrical wholesalers at 9am and purchased the 2 tube 36w ballast. Brought it home, very excited, fixed it up but it would only light the tube for 2 seconds then go out. I managed to change the wiring around so that one tube would stay lit but obviously that isnt ideal for my tank. So I called the wholesalers again and the man said its unusual for a 36w ballast to not light a 38w ballast, but that he didnt have a 38w for me to swap it for instead, he didnt know what was wrong

So I phoned around some other electrical wholesalers, and they all gave me the same answer, no 38w ballasts. So I had to go with some more advice from a man in another shop, (my internet went down too so I couldnt ask here! ) and got a 40w 4 tube ballast and a 58w2 tube ballast to try. Unfortunately these did the same as before, all lit up for 2 seconds but the light could not be sustained, I even split the 2 in 1 wire to make 4 wires in the hope that would work, but no!

At this point I was tearing my hair out, but my husband came home after being away on business since thursday and saw how much trouble Ive been having with it, and was rather impressed Id got this far! But we both agreed after going through everything again that we should get a new unit. They obviously make it as difficult as possible to fix yourself!

So the unit is ordered, £81 for some plastic, wires and a bloody ballast and it will be here tomorrow. In the meantime I have 1 light for the fishes up and running but the shop says I can return all of the ballasts tomorrow luckily.

So thankyou again for all your help with this, Ive learnt more about electrics in these 4 days than I did in my lifetime!

If I ever need advice again I'll pop back.

Thanks again!