Grounding Tek retrofit into wooden canopy? NEW troubles...
 

I am in the process of wiring up my Tek retrofit today, and notice there now is a green grounding wire in the kit (didn't used to be in other kits I have used). The instructions say to attach the two green wires together (one from ballast, one from the power cord), and then to an Earth Ground. It is an Advance ballast with a metal casing.

From another thread: I am mounting the Tek into a wooden (and painted) canopy along with a couple halides. How do I ground the Tek ballast? What exactly is a proper ground? What should I screw that ground into?

On another note...the halides are grounded right? :eek: The halides are pendants that I am mounting into the canopy, not retrofit. Vertex electronic ballasts with PFO pendants, plug n play.

I don't get electricity...

How many wires are there in the cable from the ballast to the lamp? If 2 then no ground, if 3 then most likely ground. If they are giving you a ground wire, then to me it says "ground your fixture because the lamp isn't grounded".

My original hood retrofit kit came with a grounding wire which I grounded the hood to earth ground via an outlet (don't ground to a power bar).

When I upgraded my lighting to dual 250W, then the ballasts and lamps came grounded. So now my hood is extra grounded :)

In the case of the halide there are 3 wires throughout - from outlet to socket.

In the case of the T5s there are 3 wires from outlet to ballast, then 2 wires from ballast to each bulb (one to each end cap).

What do you mean you ground via an outlet?

My understanding, and what I have seen is that when there are lights mounted in a metal frame (shop lights, kitchen lights, fish canopies, etc) there will be a green ground wire screwed into that metal frame (I don't understand how that is grounding it though lol). My understanding is that keeps you from getting zapped when you touch the metal frame, the ballast, or the bulb. So, if my "frame" is wood it won't conduct electricity so screwing a ground into a wood frame will do nothing. If I'm not screwing that green wire onto a metal frame, what am I screwing it to?

Your house has ground wires, the ground spike is usually in the basement and connects to the copper piping and electrical panel. All your household outlets should be grounded, the ground wire connects from the electrical panel to all the metal electrical boxes then your light fixtures and outlets connect to the metal boxes. To ground your ballasts simply connect the green wire from the ballasts to the green wire from the power cable that plugs in the wall. Just be sure to use three prong power cords.

Your neutral line (white) also acts a ground wire. The extra green ground wire is in the event a wire comes loose in a metal electric box the electricity will still be grounded to your house and not electrocute someone or cause a fire. As Sphelps says as long as you are grounding from your ballast to your electrical outlet you will be fine. You don't really need to add another ground from your wooden canopy to the house as the neutral wire is still grounding your fixture and the wooden canopy won't allow electricity to conduct through it in the event of a loose wire in the canopy. Just unplug the ballast before you do any work in the canopy such as bulb changes and you should have no problems.

If your ballast has 3 wires going in, hopefully one green, then you're pretty much good to go. Don't worry about mounting to the wood since your ballast should already be safetied.

You also mentioned a green grounding wire in the kit, is this an extra piece in addition to the third wire in the cord going to the ballast? Some pics of the set up would be helpful, but in the meantime I'll look up the tek retro fixture online to see if that helps me visualize what you have.

My T5HO set up is a bit more of a diy rig with Workhorse ballasts and water resistant endcaps I purchased seperately. It also has individual reflectors for each lamp and I found grounding each reflector was a good idea since I was getting tingles when brushing against the reflectors with my hand in the water. Any piece of wiring will do for this purpose and it can be attached to one of the mounting screws you use to mount the ballast. Since your ballast case is metal, it will provide grounding for your reflectors through the ballast case. If they're clip on reflectors with metal screws holding the clips, you can attach the ground wire there. You'll need one for each reflector unless you prefer to link each reflector with another short piece of wire. Either way it gets to be a bit of a hassle when removing reflectors for cleaning, but that's the price you pay for added safety.

I'll have to disagree with this particular statement. The neutral is a return for the hot wire and should not be considered as what is commonly referred to as a 'ground'. The ground in your residence is connected to a grounding stake or other approved method of providing an 'earth' potential. The neutral (white) goes back to your breaker panel and essentially back to the power provider.

If you take a peek inside a properly wired breaker panel, you will see that the ground wire terminals are separate entities from the neutral wires which are attached to one side of your circuit breakers. EDIT: Ok my bad here, the neutrals are not attached to one side of the circuit breakers, but they are on a separate terminal bar which is connected to one of the lines coming into the house from the power company. The ground terminals are still separate from the neutrals though.

Ok thanks Steve, I didn't really get the whole grounded outlet thing, but that clarifies it. Obviously, from the work I've done in the past I've seen all this electrical that you're talking about, but I didn't understand how it all worked with each other. I was also thinking that I just need to connect the greens to each other (between ballast and plug end).

No extra ground wire. The ground comes right out of the ballast, and needs to be connect to the green end coming out of the power cord. Power cord has a male outlet plug on one end, 8' of cord, and the three bare wires on the other end.

The Tek retrofit that I have sounds just like the one you describe. It all has to be wired up DIY. Clip on reflectors too.

Hmmm, I was wondering about that too. The clip on reflectors are notorious for the "tingle". :lol:

An easy to use grounding kit is usually a green wire, one end can be screwed onto a piece of metal (your hood) and the other end has a plug with 3 prongs. The 2 power prongs are plastic as not to conduct electricity, and the third ground prong is metal, and is how the grounding kit grounds itself to earth ground via your outlet. (just plug it in!).

Alternatively, if you're handy and qualified, you can open up your outlet and hard wire the grounding wire to your earth ground.

You can disagree with me if you want as it's only my opinion but I think they essentially both do the same thing, one is continuous and the other is only for emergencies. Both take the electricity away (flow through) from the unit to prevent it from over heating or becoming electrified and causing damage to the unit or the unfortunate person who touches it. As you stated one sends the power back to the breaker panel and then onto the grid so it can be sold again and the other sends it back to the breaker panel and then on to the earth were it is lost. I'm not an electrician by trade even though I work with it all the time and I'll have to ask one of my electricians but don't some breaker panels use the same bar for both the neutral and ground wires? Maybe this is old technology and not current code?

Since we all know Wikipedia is the source of all factual infomation (:lol::lol:), see below:

This also explains why two conductor plugs always have one bigger prong, so that neutral always goes to the neutral connector in the outlet?

In my 1970s house, the neutral went back to the breaker box and connected to all the other neutrals. This bus bar was connected to the incomming neutral and to the grounding bus bar and then to a 10 foot (I think 10 ft) grounding rod close to the breaker box

Is correct, your neutral does get grounded at your panel Once and only once, The real difference is that you can get shocked from a neutral since it is carrying a load, but you can't get shocked from a ground..

Myka just make sure that you take the ground wire from your power cord and attach it to your ballast with the same screw you use to hold it in the canopy!

Is this always the case 100% of the time? I don't understand what the point of having a ground wire is if there is problem (such as a stranded line wire touching the ballast housing at the same time as the proper attachment point) and it can't carry a current away from the fixture in an emergency situation. Can you please clarify this for me.

I thought I would just hard wire the power cord right to the ballast, no screw needed?

As long as you attach the ground to the surrounding metal of the ballast
(metal surround?) the usual bare or green wire.

The green wire comes out of the ballast. Does that count?

Yes, attach the gr from ballast to green from power cord.

Ok, that was my plan. :) Thanks!

I should have wired it up today, but I got distracted sledding!

sledding!

Nice

It is always the case. The ground is a continous path to earth to protect users. The neutral is a continuous path to earth to carry load. Without a ground wire the hot can touch metal making it live and when you touch it you get a surprise. If it is grounded, it arks sparks and pops a breaker long before. If the metal of the case is touching neutral, you would know nothing of it until your neutral path to ground is broken for some reason at which time it will become live, if not grounded properly.

Omg...I have it all wired up now, checked the diagram like 10 times, but I am getting no light up. Wtf? Maybe after all this time I have a pooched ballast! Oooo, that would be fun! This isn't the first time I have wired a Tek up, so I should know what I'm doing!

Sunlight Supply you guys are a bunch of weiners!!! :p They packed the wrong diagram. I went on the Philips website, and following their diagram instead and VOILA! We have light! Now, where's the volt meter to check for zappage? :lol:

EDIT: OK, I posted this pretty much at the same time you found your solution. Good news & ignore info below... what kind of zappage are you intending to check with the voltmeter?

What brand of ballast is it? Model #, size of T5HOs & how many? I assume two lamps per ballast? Try other lamps if you have spares kicking around. Could be just a lamp. And if the ballasts have EOL (end of life) technology, when one lamp weakens, the ballast will generally shut both of them down.

I finally looked up Tek retrofit and the kits I found show them using Universal AccuStart electronic ballasts. If so, the wiring diagram looks fairly straightforward. My retrofit with Workhorse ballast requires jumper wires at the endcaps, but the diagram I found for the Universal ballast does not, much simpler actually.

Check to see if there will be a tingle (or more!) coming from ballasts and reflectors.

The Tek requires a jumper wire too, but the diagram had me wiring in those sockets on that end wrong.