Vertex 250W ballasts blew up my fixture!!!

[Delphinus]

The ignitors are in the fixture itself and not an external ballast box? Ohhhh. Well, ok then. "Whoops" ... Guess that makes sense. For pulse start ballasts, the old cap-n-coil style, there are 3 components: the transformer, a capacitor, and the ignitor (sort of a specialized capacitor). Most of the ballasts requires that the "ignitor to lamp" distance be a fairly short distance, unless using special "long range" ignitors. I guess Coralife got around this issue by keeping the ignitors close to the lamp ... regardless if whether the other two components are remotely mounted or not.

The Vertex as an electronic ballast doesn't have an ignitor but as an electronic ballast doesn't need one. Anyhow hooking it up with the ignitor still in line will certainly have bizarre results.

Just take out the ignitors and wire the new ballast leads directly the lamp sockets. What I would do is go to Home Depot or whatever, and get a pair of female and male replacement extension cord plugs so that you can disconnect the ballast easily from the fixture. (Unless the new ballast already comes with quick disconnects.) So basically you have a slight DIY project on your hand to upgrade your fixture's ballast but it's not that bad, a screwdriver, wire strippers and mmmmaybe a crimper with some crimps is all you're going to need.

I'd be happy to help if you wanted an extra set of hands and/or tools.