Extremely unhappy right now!!!!!

[NWA-Planted]

Originally Posted by Jules

That would be an awesome selling point . . .

"We mount our ballasts externally, so that when the ballasts explode in a ball of flames you can simply remove the smoking remains from your light fixture and attach a fresh ballast."

This made me laugh in a very sad OMG it's probably true kind of way!

Originally Posted by Seattle_Aquarist

Hi NWA-Planted,

The product is no doubt listed with Underwriter's Laboratories (UL Listed). Report the problem to UL with the pictures that you posted here; doing so may help save a family's life!

I will have to do that! Question is how do I go about turning this information in? Like I said, shorting or going bad is one thing, but flames... Thats another!

I need LEDs now lol

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

[HD Blazingwolf]

Wow bummer! As everyone esle has said im glad you still have a house!!

I liked leds but i dont feel they suite my lighting needs, i may just be ignorant, but they just look lacking in..."something" ive seen them work first hand on the 10 gallon but it just doesnt feel like a vibrant tank

Save up for a good hanging light fixture? tek, ati? The ati's can be dimmable as well. Very cool

[jbrady33]

Scary, another good reason to go LED!

LED still had a little ac/dc transformer, but way lower power levels to deal with. I've seen a ballast go up in smoke, but never heard of a wall wart or inline transformer meltdown.

[OVT]

Man..., and I thought Coralife blowing ballasts every 2 months was bad ...

In the end, count your blessings. As my people say, it could have been worse.

[TexasCichlid]

Time for a Finnex =P glad you are okay


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[NWA-Planted]

Thank you all! And yes time to start plotting a change, I may just get some different ballasts and do a little wiring work.

Yea as originally stated a transistor popping etc thats something I can live with, but fire... Thats bad :-/

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

[HD Blazingwolf]

if ur keeping the fixture, and jus upgrading the ballast.
u might be interested in dimmable ballasts !!!!

[CatSoup]

Wowza! Glad you're home was still standing. Hopefully they will do a recall now so that no one gets hurt.

[Seattle_Aquarist]

Originally Posted by NWA-Planted

I will have to do that! Question is how do I go about turning this information in? Like I said, shorting or going bad is one thing, but flames... Thats another!
Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

Reporting concerns with UL Certified products

UL actively addresses concerns about UL certified products. These include situations involving fire, shock, injury or property damage; misuse or misrepresentation of the UL Mark; and unauthorized or counterfeit UL Marks.

Product incident reports (formerly field reports)
Report a concern with a product bearing a UL Mark
Frequently asked questions
Useful information on product incident reports
Anticounterfeiting operations
Information on how we aggressively deal with products bearing counterfeit UL Marks.

Here is the link to the page where you can report the incident.

[PlantedRich]

Whoa! Are you all totally missing the point?

All the hysterics about fire is not needed. Turning it over to any safety folks will get you a good laugh! What do safety folks do? They plan to protect consumers when the unexpected happens. There are going to be malfunctions any time you have mechanical or electrical items. What this fixture did is what it should do when they fail. Was there a fire? Did the house burn down? NO! The design of the fixture kept the heat inside the metal cover where it was safe.

We can all rant when things fail but going overboard and screaming about burning down the house is just not productive. The design worked even though the product failed. Fine to hate the product but you should appreciate the regulations that saved the house.

That fire is no more than the normal damage from electrical arcing. A GFCI plugin would have prevented some of the damage.

[tomfromstlouis]

My experience with ballasts in general is that this is the way they all go. I have no idea why this is so, but spewing tarry gunk and odor has happened to me multiple times. I did not have so much collateral damage, but then the ballasts I've lost were more isolated.

[NWA-Planted]

Dimmable ballast might be the way to go!

Rich not to say your not right in anyway, but generally when something goes electronics wise there is a small scorch area around where whatever blew or popped just due to the energy released etc.

However, you can see that there was in fact a flame as it practically burned through the circuit board. A little damage is to be expected but I would not think this much would be normal?


To me... This is a normal blown ballast



Little bit of scorching, but not scorching and melting a 1/3rd of the ballast!

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

[plantednano]

Originally Posted by NWA-Planted

Dimmable ballast might be the way to go!

Rich not to say your not right in anyway, but generally when something goes electronics wise there is a small scorch area around where whatever blew or popped just due to the energy released etc.

However, you can see that there was in fact a flame as it practically burned through the circuit board. A little damage is to be expected but I would not think this much would be normal?

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

I agree, the damage looks more extreme than one would expect. Granted the housing contained the heat/flame etc, but how long would it house these before failing as well?

I would report this with the simple intention of at least building a database, incase this incident happens to another but ends with property damage, at least there is evidence that it has been a problem before.

1 out of 10000 made could fail (which might be concidered acceptable) or 1 out of every 100 could fail this way but if no one ever reports or points out a problem, engineers can never solve it.

[NWA-Planted]

I will be reporting it, as you said if nothing more than to make it known. I don't expect some big deal to be made of it, but I will report it and let the safety people make a determination if it's an acceptable derailleur failure or not.

Sent from a dark corner in my happy place

[DogFish]

Originally Posted by NWA-Planted

I will be reporting it, as you said if nothing more than to make it known.....

You already reported were it matter the most to US the people that use the product.

UL's job is to test what the manufactors PAY them to test, nothing more/nothing less. There function is to be an independent source of info...period.

There are consumer safety boards/ services. But, how many of us ever use them to research a purchase. You folks are my research team. I go to fellow
hobbiest for my info.

I would contact the company that made the fixture. Maybe they have a GENII replacement ballast. I would not put the same design ballast in that fixture.