Electrician question: grounding a ballast for retrofit light installation

[banditpowdercoat]

Most Flourescent ballasts are not grounded. The lamp shade/fixture is grounded, but the ballast itself is not bonded. Not totally sure why. On regular fourescent fixtures, the ballast is held in with a nut. Maybe this qualifies as a ground to CSA? I dunno. But never have to ground the ballast for code or anything. Just make sure the fixture is grounded and you will be safe

[mike31154]

If the metal case of the ballast is attached to a metal fixture, which is in turn grounded/bonded, then yes, the ballast is grounded/bonded. If you're mounting the ballast to a wooden or otherwise non-conductive material in a hood, as is the case for many retrofit applications, then you'll want to run a grounding/bonding wire from the ballast case to a proper ground. If there's a short inside the ballast to its case, the first time you touch it, could be unpleasant.

[banditpowdercoat]

But normally, the metal case is powdercoated, so is the case of the ballast. This does not lead to ensuring a good electrical bond. Usually grounds have to be more solid. Just like pipe. Can't use teflon tape on conduit threads, as it may impar the bonding.

[Binare]

That's why you gotta scrape the powder coat off, just use a self tapping screw with a washer, wrap the ground from your supply around the screw under the washer and tighten it up. Ballasts normally are grounded to the case if its metal. Screw and washer would cec acceptable... But then again, the retrofit aint csa anyways, unless you spend 500 bucks on gettin your dyi light hood inspected and get a csa designation for it.

[banditpowdercoat]

I know to scrape. But just dont ever recall the factory ones being scraped at all? just funny. I must have installed/repaired 1000+ fixtures in my career, never noticed about the ballast itself grounding

[Slick Fork]

With my new retrofit fixture I grounded the ballasts. Both the icecap 660 and the advance dimmables had a spot to insert a ground wire.