Hello,
I recently took my Electronic HMI ballast from storage. It seems to be one of the cheaper line made by ARRI which can identify by itself if a 1200W ore 575W lamp is connected.

The ballast designation is EB575/1200 and the datshette may be found here.

if you now read the pinout of the you have an safety loop, two lamp outputs and an ignitor output.

I sadly do not have the original ignitor as this ballast came from a company bankruptcy and the rest of the laminar was nowhere to be found. As the ballast is electronic i am now uncertain what kind of Ignitor I may use. Do I need a two wire high voltage pulse ignitor, or would a standard three wire ignitor do the trick? How do this work out with the square wave lamp signal?

The last thing I want to do is to destroy the ballast.

I hope some of you may have experience with those electronic ballast that require and external ignitor and may help me with that question.

Best regards,

Alex

A superimposed ignitor may work, but it should be compatible with the lamp.
For the 3-wire superimposed ignitor (with just one lamp side carrying the ignition HV pulses, with pins "Ballast input", "Neutral" and "Lamp output") Connect the "ballast input" ignitor terminal to the ballast terminal D/4 (see Fig.1a), the "Neutral" ignitor terminal to the ballast terminal F/5, the lamp then between the ignitor "Lamp output" and ballast terminal C/6. In this configuration the ignitor should be controlled by the ballast (the ignition time out,...) as normally.

A 4-wire (hot restart) superimposed ignitor (with two inputs from the ballast and two HV outputs to the lamp) the inputs will be connected to the ballast and outputs to the lamp, but it won't be controlled by the ballast.

Hello Madved,
thank you. I think by rated for the lamp you mean the current rating and û rating of the ignitor. That should not be a problem. A In=14A and Û=4.5kV should work for that lamp type.
I was just uncertain as this is the first time I saw an electronic ballast without build in ingnitor, having before only read about them.

best regards,

Alex

It is the current rating, the peak ignition voltage, but as well the triggering threshold voltage.
The latest is important mainly when it is not controlled by the ballast (if the lamp is designed with a too high arc voltage vs the ignitor, it may fire permanently and so fail early).
For the peak voltage the lamp may suffice with the few kV if hot restart is not needed. The 25+kV such lamps use to be rated for is just to allow hot restart.

Hello,
I want to give you a follow up regarding this topic. I experimented a bit with this ballast and various ways to use a a three wire ignitor with this ballast. As Ignitor i used a 400W Magnetek 230V Igngitor and my 1200W HMI event lamp.
Using the ignitor pin of the socket I was not able to strike the lamp, as the potential between ether one of the lamp line and the ignitor line is too low. Finally I wired it like you would wire it when using a choke ballast (both lamp lines go in the ignitor). However I put an extra switch in the "neutral"  line, and the lamp striked successfully.
However on thing to note, my ballast has an open line voltage around 450V. So it may destroy other ignitors...

best regards,

Alex