Lumatek Ballast Help

Ok so I got my Lumatek ballasts today... It Cost me a tonne to import them but...:-/
Anyway,
I want to set them up right away. My lights come on in an hr or so.
However, I'm having slight difficulty installing them.
I believe I know what to do but I don't wanna risk it. So just to be sure:
I'll have to cut the wires and join them to the white and black wires on the ballast?
And the green is the ground?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Here are some photos


The wires coming out of my fixture has only white and black so I'm assuming I' m joining these with the wite and black on the ballast. Now where do I ground it?

 

lol there is a wiring diagram in the second picture you posted... but it is a little small for me to see it clearly.

I am going on a limb here to get the right configuration without seeing it, but you will probably have the white and black from your power supply hook into your ballast (not sure what color they will be on the ballast though), then there will be two wires that will have to be wired to your bulb socket (Since this is only a loop back to the ballast, I do not think that the colors of these two wires matter).
Your ground from the ballast will connect with the ground on your power supply cord.

Did this help? if not maybe I can explain better...

 

Thanks for your response,
I thought I'd have to connect the wires to my power supply as well at first glimpse.
But, it came with a power cord. So the side that's confusing me is the output side of the ballast.
My bad for not providing proper pix.
Hopefully these would help more
This is the input side so it has a plug to plug straight into the wall


And this is the output side that goes to the fixture/lamp (I hope)


And the diagram (Phone Pic)

This diagram shows for HID lamps however, I have DE HQI

 

ahh well this makes your wiring super easy then!

I am assuming you will have three sets of wires: 1. the three coming from your ballast, 2. the two from your bulb assembly, 3. and the extension cord that you will place in between the above two.
Green is always ground so the easy step is to just connect all your greens together.
I am pretty sure that direction of flow does not make a difference with HID or HQI bulbs so as long as you dont mix up your wires, you really cant go wrong. Take the white and connect that with one of the colors in your extension cord, then connect the other end to an end on your light fixture. Next, take the other end from your fixture and connect it to the other wire in your extension cord, and finally bring it all back around and connect this wire to the last one on the ballast. Simple right?

 

Ok great, it's as simple as I suspected.
Thanks a lot for your help.
What would happen if I don't ground the ballast?
Or if I just ground it on wall or something?

 

your ballast is already grounded to the wall outlet so you dont have to worry about a short there.

If your light fixture has a ground then that will be connected to the ground on the ballast. just connect all the greens you have together and you will be grounded everywhere into the wall

 

Depending on the age of his home, your making a big assumption.

 

Cool. Thanks for all the info.
Just finished setting them up.
The Lumateks are evidently more powerful than my previous Odyssea and aquamedic.
Lumatek is powering the coral keepers 14K bulbs more on the 10K side as compared to my old ballasts but I guess that's because of the increase in power.
I'm changing the bulbs to Phoenix 14K soon anyway.

What would happen if I over drive the 250W bulbs to more on the 400W scale.
I know it will shorten the lifespan etc, but will there be anymore serious consequences?
I took some pics for comparison.

ODYSSEA BALLASTS


AQUA MEDIC BALLASTS


NEW LUMATEK BALLASTS

 

i did assume it has a ground in the wall... but he did mention it in a post so I did jump to conclusions that they were grounded outlets.

Wow, the tank looks MUCH better with those nice ballasts And I have to say that phoenix 14k DE are pretty awesome bulbs... one of the best out there as far as spectral output.

Anyways, as far as running them at 400w... You and your corals will probably not like it at all. Overdriving them that much will really make them pump out some light but the spectrum will shift. It will be very white (maybe even yellowish) and you also run the risk of blowing up the bulb. On some occasions this can also release UV into the tank which is usually what damages the corals.
the phoenix 14k at 250w is really a great color and the spectrum is truly great for all kinds of coral! running them at the 250w HQI setting will over drive them slightly (i think at around 275w) and this will make your tank slightly brighter. You will probably not even be able to notice this but the spectrum will also shift VERY slightly closer to a white CCT. Bulb life will also be decreased by about 2ish months.