Ballast for Joker 1200?

[Brian McCann]

Hi I just bought a used joker 1200 par. They don't make the light anymore. For now I'm going to look into its compatibility with a ballast I already own or the possibility of having an adapter cable made to work with its pin configuration. I called Joker and they were nice enough to tell me that it has the strand/ltm pin configuration and that power gems made a ballast for the light at one point.

 

Does anyone have advice on where to find a ballast to run this light and what I should be looking for? I'd like to find a used electronic ballast. I was checking out the arri knockoffs sold by photolight on ebay they seem ok or is that a bad idea? Anyone have experience with those?

[Phil Rhodes]

Theoretically, an HMI is an HMI, although it's as well to compare specifications if you can. You may wish to be particularly cautious if the lamp head was not intended to be hot-started and you end up with a hot start ballast, as the high voltage ignition required to overcome the high pressure in a hot lamp may cause arcing inside, and is potentially dangerous. This is particularly true if the device uses a single-ended lamp, although I'm not sure how that applies to PAR modules.

 

P

 

PS - I've just realised this was rather unclear: the hot start ignitor is part of the lamp head, not the ballast, but they still need to be compatible.

[Tim Tyler]

Brian,

 

You might put a call into Gilbert at Galaxy Repair in Los Angeles.

 

He's good ad adapting ballast to fixtures and all stuff HMI. Sometimes he has used gear available too.

[Guy Holt]

Does anyone have advice on where to find a ballast to run this light and what I should be looking for? I'd like to find a used electronic ballast.

 

Unless the electronic ballast is Power Factor Corrected (PFC) you may do better with an older magnetic ballast. Power Factor Correction is very new in 1200W HMIs and so you will not find it in most used ballasts. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were not even familiar with Power Factor Correction in HMI ballasts.

 

Since PFC is not mandated in this country, as it is in Europe for any electrical device that draws more than 75W, we are pretty much ignorant of Power Factor and effect that poor Power Factor can have on a distribution system. However, any film technician familiar with large HMI heads will be quite familiar with Power Factor and Power Factor Correction (PFC.) That is because after a false start back in the 90s, all major manufacturers now include PFC circuitry in HMI ballasts in the 6-18kw range. They do so by necessity. The early line of Lightmaker electronic ballasts were nick named by film electricians “Troublemaker” ballasts because they were not Power Factor Corrected and proved that PFC circuitry was absolutely necessary in large ballasts to reduce heat and returns on the neutral, and to increase ballast reliability (beware, some are still kicking around ebay). But, because of the added cost, weight, and complexity of PFC circuitry, ballast manufacturers in the US still only offer PFC circuitry as an option in medium-sized 2.5-4kw ballasts. And, until very recently manufacturers did not offer PFC circuitry in HMI ballasts smaller than 2.5kw in the US (in the EU PFC circuitry in mandatory in all HMI ballasts sold.)

 

Part of the reason was that PFC circuitry did not offer a huge advantage when plugging into house power. A typical 1200W Power Factor Corrected electronic HMI ballast will draw 11 Amps at 120 Volts verses the 19 Amp draw of a non-PFC electronic ballast. While not a huge advantage when plugging into house power, the added efficiency of a PFC 1200 ballast can make a huge difference when powering a lighting package off of a portable generator. For example, when you consider that a Kino Flo Parabeam 400 draws only 2 amps, the 8 Amp difference between using a PFC 1200W electronic ballast and standard non-PFC 1200W electronic ballast, can mean the difference between running four additional Parabeam 400s on a portable generator or not – I think you would have to agree that is a major boost in production capability and pertinent to any one using a portable generator as their principle source of set power. Unfortunately, it is still the case that almost every 575 - 1200 W electronic ballast that you will find in a rental house or for sale used in North America will be a non-PFC electronic ballast.

 

Depending on the type of filming you do, you may in fact be better served by an older magnetic ballast over a non- Power Factor Corrected electronic ballast. A 1.2kw electronic ballast draws 19amps (verses the 13.5 amps of a magnetic ballast) so it will always trip the common 15amp house circuit and will trip a 20 Amp circuit if there is something else, like a computer or light, on the same circuit. Where you can't always know what else is on the same circuit, or even if it is a 20 or 15 Amp circuit, a 1.2kw magnetic ballast drawing only 13.5 Amps is the safer bet since it can operate on a 15 amp circuit even with other things on the circuit. Non-Power Factor Corrected electronic ballasts are meant to be used on film sets where every circuit is 20 Amps and you know what is on the circuit because you are distributing the power yourself from a tie in or generator. If your style of shooting requires that you plug into wall outlets, you will be better served by a magnetic ballast.

 

But that is not the only benefit to using a magnetic ballast over a non-PFC electronic ballasts. If you don’t have access to the newest PFC electronic ballasts, the older magnetic ballasts are in fact cleaner running on portable gas generators than non-PFC electronic ballasts. The harmonic distortion created by non-PFC ballasts reacting poorly with the distorted power waveform of conventional AVR generators limited the number of HMIs you could power on a portable generator. The primary factors limiting the use of HMIs on portable generators has been the inefficient use of power by non-PFC electronic ballasts and the harmonic noise they throw back into the power stream. The adverse effects of this harmonic noise, can take the form of overheating and failing equipment, efficiency losses, circuit breaker trips, excessive current on the neutral wire, and instability of the generator’s voltage and frequency. For these reasons it has never been possible to operate more than a couple of 1200W HMIs on a conventional 6500W portable gas generator. Harmonic noise of this magnitude can also damage HD digital cinema production equipment, create ground loops, and possibly create radio frequency (RF) interference. The increasing use of personal computers, hard drives, and microprocessor-controlled recording equipment in production has created an unprecedented demand for clean, reliable power on set.

 

However, now that inverter generators, like the Honda EU6500is, do not require crystal governors to run at precisely 60Hz, magnetic ballasts offer a cost effective alternative to dirty non-PFC electronic ballasts because you can operate magnetic HMI ballasts “flicker free” on inverter generators. And as mentioned above, the smaller magnetic ballasts (575-2500W) offer the distinct advantage of being less expensive and draw less power (once they have come up to speed) than the commonly available non-PFC electronic equivalents (13.5A versus 19A for a 1.2kw.)

 

Of course there are downsides to using magnetic ballasts. One down side is that you are restricted to using only the safe frame rates and shutter angles. But, when you consider that every film made up to the early 1990s were made with magnetic HMI ballasts you can see that being limited to the safe frame rates is not all that restrictive. Another downside to magnetic ballasts is that you can’t load the generator to full capacity because you must leave “head room” for their higher front end striking load. When choosing HMIs to run off portable generators, bear in mind that magnetic ballasts draw more current during the striking phase and then they “settle down” and require less power to maintain the HMI Arc. By contrast, an electronic ballasts “ramps up”. That is, its’ current draw gradually builds until it “tops off.”

 

While older HMIs with magnetic ballasts are less expensive to purchase or rent, Power Factor Correction (PFC) makes the newest electronic ballasts worth the extra money when it comes to lighting with portable generators. The substantial reduction in line noise that results from using power factor corrected ballasts on the nearly pure power waveform of an inverter generator creates a new math when it comes to calculating the load you can put on a generator. In the past we had to de-rate portable gas generators because of the inherent short comings of conventional generators with AVR and Frequency governing systems when dealing with non-PFC electronic ballasts. The harmonic distortion created by non-PFC ballasts reacting poorly with the distorted power waveform of conventional AVR generators limited the number of HMIs you could power on a portable generator to 75% of their rated capacity (4200Watts on a 6500W Generator). But now, where inverter generators have virtually no inherent harmonic distortion or sub-transient impedance and power factor correction (PFC) is available in small HMI ballasts, this conventional wisdom regarding portable gas generators no longer holds true. Where before you could not operate more than a couple 1200W HMIs with non-PFC electronic ballasts on a conventional generator because of the consequent harmonic distortion, now according to the new math of low line noise, you can load an inverter generator to capacity. And if the generator is one of the new modified 7500W Honda EU6500is inverter generators, you will be able to run a continuous load of up to 7500W as long as your HMI and Kino ballasts are Power Factor Corrected.

 

For more detailed information on HMIs I would suggest you read an article I wrote for our company newsletter on operating HMIs.

 

 

This article is cited in the just released 4th Edition of Harry Box's "Set Lighting Technician's Handbook" and featured on the companion website "Box Book Extras." Of the article Harry Box exclaims:

 

"Great work!... this is the kind of thing I think very few technician's ever get to see, and as a result many people have absolutely no idea why things stop working."

"Following the prescriptions contained in this article enables the operation of bigger lights, or more smaller lights, on portable generators than has ever been possible before."

 

The article is available online at http://www.screenlightandgrip.com/html/emailnewsletter_generators.html.

 

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lightng & Grip Rental & Sales in Boston