GFCI tripped with MH is plugged in

S

SaltyTank

I have 250w ice bulb and ballast on spider reflector. When I plug MH to the GFCI outlet, it will start for a second and then trip the GFCI. Does anyone know why that is. I have test in other outlets that are GFCI and they all trip. However when I plug it to a regular outlet. Everything works find. Does the ballast need its own dedicated outlet with GFCI?

Please help.
Thanks in Advanced, SaltyTank
 
Did you check the wiring to make sure there's no bare wires touching metal. Depending on if you have a digital or magnetic ballast most metal halides don't draw enough amps to trip gfci by itself. My halides draw about 2 amps and it's a digital ballast. I would recheck the wiring to make sure you don't have any stray wires hanging out. If you checked everything and it's still tripping try plugging a hairdryer to it those suck alot of energy you might want to see if it's just not a bad gfci
 
I have the same issue but with compact fluorescents on my nano.

I just plugged the lights into their own surge and put the rest of the tank components on the gfci.
 
You also need to see what the max draw is on the gfci if you exceed it's max your going to trip it. MH tend to draw more power on startup so you need to take in account the extra draw.
 
I had the same issue with my 250 MH and I ended up putting it on its own GFCI outlet otherwise it tripped and cut everything else off. Since putting it on its own GFCI circuit it has not tripped.
 
It was wired wrong, now everything is working perfectly fine. So if anyone has this issue, just check the wiring again.
 
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