So, a while back, I bought one of those mini Regent 100 watt bucket lights from the restore and it worked great! I decided one day that I wanted to use that ballast in a streetlight of mine so I could fix it up as it didn't have a ballast. Silly me decides to epoxy the ballast into the fixture so when I wanted to take it out, I pulled it down and the ballast smacked right into the metal of the fixture, denting the winding.

Just today I brought out that fixture in pieces, repainted the fixture and put new terminals on the ballast. Well luck has it that when I was wiring up the ballast to test it, the wire SNAPPED OFF, making the ballast USELESS.

The fixture is still OK and it just needs a ballast so my question is, Can you use a 100w PSMH ballast WITHOUT the igniter and the capacitor? The fixture is very compact and it needs to run a 100w Mercury lamp. If you cant run a 100w PSMH ballast without an ignitor & capacitor, Would anyone know where I could get a NPF H38 Mercury lamp ballast?

For sure without Ignitor, but the cap is a must, else you run the risk of toasting your ballast. Ideally, you could use a 70w mh ballast to power a 100w merc, it'll be overpowered in the setup you described.

So you cant use a 100w PSMH ballast on a merc? You have to use 70w?

It'll be slightly overdriven, but not badly.

The 100W PSMH might be ok for the fake 125W 175W Mercs if they use the European 125W arctube (and not a SBMV arctube)

Yep, good call Ash. I planned on doing that with a yardblaster that would be metal halide.

I have a 100W PSMH fixture that has a blown igniter-run a 100W Mercury lamp on it just fine!!Rescued the light from my junk box!Got the idea from here-think there was  another forum about this.

Westies are resilient to change. I ran a 100w on 175w ballast and it didn't bat an eye. I don't think a 10% increase of power should hurt it much.

100W pulse MH is about 1.3A (about 1.2A into the higher MV arc voltage), while the 100W MV needs just 0.9A, so it is about 30% overdrive.
The 70W pulse MH (0.95A into 80V of the MH arc, about 0.9A into 120V MV arc) is spot on the 100W MV requirements...

Medved isnt the 100W Puls MH same as our 100W Pulse MH / SON-T ? That is 1.2A nominal

Medved isnt the 100W Puls MH same as our 100W Pulse MH / SON-T ? That is 1.2A nominal

Yes... I had remembered just the "1.2A", but seem to forget, where exactly it belongs... :-)
Anyway, the 100W MH ballast (again with disabled ignitor, of course) is compatible with the EU's 125W MV (and will feed practically any MV by 125W)...

I seen (and have) even ones that are down to 1.1A. Dont know exactly why

http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2179&pos=9&pid=107818

I've used both 70w and 100w PSMH for 100w MV lamps. The 100w MH ballast runs them brighter of course but compared to most regular 100w MV ballasts, the 100w MH version perhaps runs a bit higher and the 70w MH clearly runs lamps lower. So, with MH ballasts, one is a bit high and one is a bit low. However, some 100w MV ballasts also over-run lamps a bit, comparable to 100w MH ballast.

It's preference I guess...along manufacture's tolerance. It's best to test and see first, as they do vary. A vintage lamp would probably be better on 70w MH ballast but for all-out power, a 100w MH ballast will be fine too, but MV lamp will obviously have a somewhat shorter useful life, as with any lamp being slightly over-driven.

I have run my 100w lamp on a 70w pulse start MH ballast with igniter removed. The ballast has no cap however but lamp ran perfect, think a 100w would be to much

My 100W MH ballast has run a 100W mercury lamp now for several months with no problems to the light fixture or bulb.The ignitor must have opened circuited-has not been removed.