The Lamp Room

As some of you may know I managed to get a 70W metal halide flood light off a fire engine the other day. What I didn't realise is that the ballast was slightly wet and when i powered it up it sadly set on fire.
I dried it off And cut off the bad bit of PCB as it was not important and the light worked. I was planning on using a 12-24V step up so I could use this on the van. Sadly the ballast decided to catch on fire for a second time and this one is terminal I am waiting for a price on a replacment, if it's expensive I'll have to use a 12-230V inverter and electronic ballast.
Can anyone think of a better option?

You could use one of those inverter/ballasts for car headlights, I have one currently running a halide lamp and its fine. Look up 70w hid xenon ballast it might do the job

Do you think it would run 70W SON!?

I dunno about 70w son but I know them 12v 35w hid ballasts run a 35w sox lamp perfectly fine

Cant see why it wouldnt work for son

HI

If you going to use a inverter you need to make sure it can take a high Inrush current as a 70 watt SON/MH Lamp as a Starting Current 3 times that of the Running Current, normally a 300VA Inverter will be OK.

As far as i'm aware, mains rated electronic ballasts overdrive the lamp during warmup too. Im not completely certain however.

When did fire engines start using HID Kev?, I only remember seeing the old halogen set ups?

I've had 35w sox running off a 12v 35w xenon headlight ballast with no issues. it started the lamp and ran up fine. didn't look any different to running off the proper gear. I've never tried other lamp types yet but I do have a spare xenon ballast kicking about so I will have a play and see what it'll run.