Hi, I'm a new member, I just bought and setup a 35 watt sox lamp with a magnetic ballast. I was wondering if my setup looks correct. I know very little about wiring and am not sure if I read the wiring diagram correctly. I was a little concerned because after running the lamp for a few hours the ballast was very hot, Almost too hot to touch, is that normal?

I drew up a diagram of how I wired everything and took photos as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, as far as I can tell that looks ok, but I'm in 240V-land so things are different here. A photo of the label on the ballast might be helpful as well, I can't read it from what I can see of it.

By the way, that lamp needs support, it shouldn't be left hanging from the lampholder like that. I suggest you mount it something like this, which is one of my 35W/55W setups. Mount the lampholder so it's high enough to keep the lamp a quarter of an inch or so above the board, then at the far end of the lamp, put a screw into the board so that it sticks far enough out to support the lamp, which ideally needs to be as close to horizontal as possible.

Alternatively, lamps up to 55W can be run vertically CAP UP, but I don't really like doing this unless it's in a fixture that is designed for it.

Thanks for the reply. I will make sure to support the lamp better. I added a picture of the ballast too.

Going by that, you've got the wiring correct. Post a picture or two on the gallery when you're done 

Welcome to LG, by the way, feel free to ask if you have any questions, I LOVE SOX lighting 

Thank you, will do!

So do you think the ballast getting pretty hot is normal? that was the main thing that was making me wonder if it was wired right

It depends on what the ballast is rated for. I notice on the label there isn't a temperature marked; our ballasts here have something like "Tw=120°C / 𝚫t=60°C" which means that the maximum temperature the ballast core will stand is 120 degrees C and it should not go higher than 60 degrees above ambient temperature. But without that, it's hard to say.

Can you measure the temperature accurately..? I use one of those little laser thermometers, you just aim the laser dot at it and it gives you a reading.

From my understanding of how UL temperature codes work on North American ballasts, AD 180 is the code for the max temperature of the ballast insulation (UL Class H, 180°C) and the 1029A under the RU symbol is the UL bench top rise temp rating. In this case it would be 1029A which corresponds to a rise of less than 75°C above ambient.

See my attached spec sheets for more information. The UL Bench Top Rise table is on page 3 of the Advance HID ballast guide file.

That's interesting, I didn't know that, thanks for posting.