# Help troubleshoot Coralife light fixture, please!



## Lutefisk (Jun 29, 2014)

Does anyone have experience troubleshooting and maintaining power compact light fixtures? Here's my tale of woe:

I have a Coralife power compact light fixture I got used about a year ago. The other day, the light turned off in the middle of the photoperiod, and wouldn't turn back on. I tried another outlet, and a different bulb that had worked the last time I tested it, but neither solved the problem. There were a couple of instances in the last few weeks where the light flickered briefly, but no major signs of impending failure.

I figured it was the ballast, so I pulled the fixture apart. It's a model SPL-165R-JS rapid start electronic ballast. I've been using with a single 65W Coralife compact fluorescent bulb, as per its rating. When disassembled, none of the parts looked fried, no corrosion was visible anywhere (except a small amount on the contacts where the bulb pins sit), and the fuse (which is soldered to the board--why?) appeared intact. None of the connections were obviously loose.

What should I try next? The eventual answer will be, "Pony up for a newer light fixture," but I'd like to limp along with this one for a while longer, if possible.

Lastly, I'm not sure I put the connectors back in the right order into the housing that mates with the pins on the bulb base. All the wires are black. Two have a white stripe, and two don't. The stripey wires are adjacent coming out of the ballast, as are the solid black ones. The ballast housing reads, "PIN 1,2 - FILA1 ; PIN 3,4 - FILA2", so I just wired them up in the same order at both ends. Does that sound right?

At any rate, none of this worked, and I'm hoping someone else has a suggestion or two. Thanks!


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## Rjjm (Jan 1, 2012)

If I am not mistaken there was a recall on lights from coralife. It depends on you light model I think


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## Lutefisk (Jun 29, 2014)

Thanks for the lead--I checked, but my model isn't covered.


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## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

Ballast is most likely toast, they don't generally show any visual signs of being dead


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## Lutefisk (Jun 29, 2014)

That's too bad. I was hoping there was a cheaper solution than picking up a new light. It looks like Coralife doesn't make power compact fixtures any more, and there's no cheap local source for the ballasts, to my knowledge.


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## spit.fire (Jan 3, 2011)

I may have one left


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## Lutefisk (Jun 29, 2014)

If you do, how much would you want for it? Do you ever make it out toward Vancouver?


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