Hi all,

Just got my very first HID ballast, from a friend.

It's a Sola Basic 70W S-62 ballast with all wires in the same color (white).

The ballast was previously used, so a good number of connections are already in place. Now I'm left with the line/neutral connections, as well as the lampholder.

PS the black wirenuts in the photo below denote the ballast / lamp ignitor connections. One goes to the large section, whilst the other goes to the small section.

Attached below is a photo. Thanks so very much!!!

Well, this is not the easiest. With a bunch of unmarked white wires even seasoned people can easily get confused. You can look at useful references like https://hid.venturelighting.com/TechCenter/BallastTypes.html for familiar wiring patterns.

By the way, that kind of question definitely deserves a better photo, where all the wires are visible and are spread out in a meaningful way as to be able to trace their origins!

From the picture, this is definitely an (auto)transformer ballast. For a small lamp, most likely just a leakage transformer (HX) or less likely, CWA circuit.

The coil with the most wires should be multi-tap primary. Sometimes, the connection to secondary is at 120V tap. In that case you can easily deduct this. Sometimes no, may be will require a creative play with an ohm-meter.

I found an identical ballast just like this one and it contains the wiring diagram to help you make your connections:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/273629086823

Let me know if this diagram seen on the eBay listing helps.

Often the labels are printed on the wires.

So, I see the wiring diagram, thanks, but how do I read A and all of the other demarcations for said ballast? It looks to be much more complex than that of say a fluorescent lamp, etc.

What does the printing on the wires say? I think I see "lamp" on one of the wires going to the black wire nuts.