AgHhH!! Ballast question . . . YaY!!

[Van down by the river]

if it takes more than a few seconds to start arching there is a problem, with either a componant of the ballast system or the match of the ballast to the bulb. this is a common problem when using "normal" probe start ballast with the bulbs we use in the hobby, but for some reason people have come to acept this routen of failed starts as a normal thing.
seeing as you are using a HQI with a ingightor you should not be getting anything like this and I would call the company and inquire about the problem. could be a bad ignightor, capacitor, ect..

Wow Shoot first ask questions later!?

megatron_55 was simply turning on and off his halides before they had a chance to fire up.

A MH arc tube contains various elements sush as mercury,sodium, thallium,indium,etc. These elements vaporize and coat the arc tube. When a bulb is new, they have yet to fully vaporize and that is why the initial few ignitions have a time delay. With additional firing and burn time, the bulb will ignite sooner. Also switching on and off the ballast in short intervals can delay ignition.
This is not something to call the manufacturer about.

As to warm up time of the bulb, this too is standard. I watch over a dozen various MH setups ignite and warm up everyday.

A characteristic of HID lamps is that the HID lamps take several minutes to warm up (ranging from 3-5 min). After any interruption of power (1/20th of a second or more), a lamp that is hot will not start immediately, and must cool sufficiently before restarting. This time delay is called the restriking time and may take anywhere from 10-20 min for MH lamps.-Sanjay Joshi

You are welcome to call Hamilton, I have found them to be fair and helpful with after sales service. When you sell thousands of items, you are bound to have some factory defects. This doesn't mean your product is no good. It is a result of scale. I have had good and bad from all equipment manufacturers over the years.