Rewiring a t5 fixture

M

mikeattack

Member
I had an electrical fire about a month ago which caused damage to a ton of my equipment. I have rewired almost all of my equipment except for my light fixture.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of not taking a picture of the wiring before I started taking it apart. I am hoping someone on here will help me rewire one of the ballasts.

The fixture is this one:- 48" Black Solar T5 HO - 8 x 54 watt + ML

Except it has 4 lamps on each switch.

Here are two pictures of what I have to wire.

The fixtures' wires:
IMG-20110923-00164.jpg


4 wires: green and white (both look like they were twisted. Blue and White (both are straight)

The new cord:
IMG-20110923-00168.jpg



Does anyone know how to wire this up?
 
redneckgearhead

redneckgearhead

Active Member
Green, white and black are USUALLY (notice I said usually) are ground, neutral and Hot, respectively, on the cord side. On the ballast side There is usually a diaphragm on it designating what color is what. What brand and model is your ballast maybe we can google it.
 
redneckgearhead

redneckgearhead

Active Member
Wow, yea none of those diagrams show the incoming side....Odd. Does the fixture have a switch? I would think that the white wire is going to be your neutral. White to white, black to blue, green to ground. I repeat I THINK!

I would do email/call workhorse and ask them.
 
M

mikeattack

Member
Yes, there is a switch. One for each of the two ballasts. I was thinking the two green wires (one per cord) would link the blue ground. Not right?
 
redneckgearhead

redneckgearhead

Active Member
I don't think so. Ballast are usually grounded through the metal housing or through a green/bare copper ground wire. I believe the white is a neutral and the blue should hook to the switch.

By looking at the first picture it appears that all the white/neutrals are hooked together, as they should be, but I can not tell where the black ones from the cords go. To the switch perhaps?
 
M

mikeattack

Member
the dark blue cord connects to the unit's housing, so that is the ground.

Both power cords teal grounds should then attach to blue ground wire in the first picture then?

I am left with the power cords black and white wire, a braided white wire attached to the switch, and a straight white wire attached to the ballast. Is the braided white wire the positive and straight white one the neutral?
 
redneckgearhead

redneckgearhead

Active Member
Wow, ok, if the blue wire is attached to the housing then it is a ground and should go to green wires. Like I said the black/white wire on the cord should be hot/neutral. The white/neutral wires are usually all connected together and the black is passed through the switch, (sometimes vise-versa) Can you take a picture of the ballast and a better picture of the light with switches, so that I can see exactly what you have?

(when you say "braided" do you mean stranded and when you say "straight" do you mean solid)

We will get this figured out!
 
M

mikeattack

Member
(when you say "braided" do you mean stranded and when you say "straight" do you mean solid)
Yes and Yes. Take a look at the first picture on this thread. The stranded one is the white fuzzy one in the back (attached to the switch) and the solid white is in the front.


Here is a picture I have on my phone.

IMG-20111003-00179.jpg
 
redneckgearhead

redneckgearhead

Active Member
AWWW, Ok, It looks like the black wire coming from the ballast is hooked to the on/off switch. If so then the black wire from the new cord should hook to the other side of that switch (fuzzy white wire in the first pic?). And the white wire coming from the ballast should hook directly to the white wire of the new cord, and The blue wire should hook to the green ground wire.

Make sense?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top