Hi all,

I finally got around to wiring my special NYC OVZ "OVH" which has that special electronic ballast gear inside rated for 150W S56 HPS or 150W MH standard 120V. Everything is already wired from the factory, all I had to do was screw in the correct wires to the terminals. Problem is I matched white to white, black to black, and green to red (red must be the ground in this case). I plugged in a standard PC. I currently don't have a S56 bulb but I just ordered one so instead screwed in a 150W MH bulb for starters. I plugged it in and the thing trips my breaker! I reset it, check my wiring, everything looked okay so I tried out a 150W S55 HPS bulb instead. Same thing happens it trips my breaker and blew a small piece of the Hot prong on my plug. 

What am I doing wrong here besides maybe putting in the wrong bulbs? My wiring shouldn't be wrong, but what does bug me is that they call the gray hot wire "lead", the white neutral wire "input" and the red ground "aux" and idk why I can't find this terminology online. I didn't think putting in a slightly different HPS bulb would be much of a fuss at all, unless these kind of ballasts are super strict about what kinds are installed. It is electronic after all. I hope I didn't hurt the gear during these failures, everything still looks and smells fine.

If anyone knows the ins and outs of these special fixtures please tell me where I went wrong, and if you need more information I'm more than happy to explain further.

Ground wire is in the middle terminal when it should not be. There is a separate ground screw on the housing near the slipfitter (it is that dark green screw). Connect it to that.

HM1000 got it. I have one of these lights and the ground goes to the ground screw next to the terminal block. The middle terminal on these is PC output. It's labelled "aux" for presumably auxiliary power. I guess for powering stuff like Christmas lights or a second luminaire so connecting ground to it is dead short from hot to ground. See the attached pic to see how I wired mine up.

If you jumper the middle terminal to the hot terminal (red to black on mine), you can bypass the PC receptacle to let the light run without a PC. As for the bulbs the ballast will run 150w PSMH (M102) or 150w HPS (S56 only). S55 150w HPS lamps require a different ballast as the lamp current and voltage is fairly different.

It works! Thank you! When the proper bulb comes in I will swap it out with that as I'm probably slowly but surely hurting the bulb/gear

HM1000 got it. I have one of these lights and the ground goes to the ground screw next to the terminal block. The middle terminal on these is PC output. It's labelled "aux" for presumably auxiliary power. I guess for powering stuff like Christmas lights or a second luminaire so connecting ground to it is dead short from hot to ground. See the attached pic to see how I wired mine up.

If you jumper the middle terminal to the hot terminal (red to black on mine), you can bypass the PC receptacle to let the light run without a PC. As for the bulbs the ballast will run 150w PSMH (M102) or 150w HPS (S56 only). S55 150w HPS lamps require a different ballast as the lamp current and voltage is fairly different.

I'm definitely gonna end up bypassing the PC as I really don't need it. Thank you guys for the advice and knowledge 

Nice you got it working!

I'd go with a 150w MH bulb for now if you have one on hand over a 150w S55 HPS. The 150w MH is close enough to a S56 HPS that the ballast won't care about it. A S55 is different enough that the ballast might get damaged. It runs at around half the voltage of a S56 but around double the current. 

Just slapped the MH bulb back in. MAN that thing warmed up quick, it's like staring into the sun. I've yet to see these with MH, and here it is! Ballast is making almost little to no noise now. Good call! 

Good to see it is now working!