# Rewiring a 4 wire ballast to a 2 wire endcap??



## Yeaulman (Jun 23, 2005)

I just aquired 4 moisture resistant endcaps and 4 22" miro 4 reflectors, but found out that the endcaps are 2 wire, and my ballast is 4 wire.

My ballasts are the Custom SeaLife 65/55W retrofit kits









Is there a way to rewire it? I think that the endcaps are pins : 1 2 3 4 while my ballast is a square pin :
1 3
2 4

Is this right? if so which wires do I hook up to each?


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

The ballast does not care which style of end cap you use. The endcaps obviously (or so it would seem) have jumped the pins. Normally your ballast has 2 sets of colored wires, 2 red and 2 blue (larger ballasts for more bulbs will have 2 red, 2 blue and 2 yellow) for your setup you wil lwant 2 red wires to go to one side of the bulb and the 2 blue wires to the other side. In you case, 2 red wires to pins 1&2 and 2 blue to pins 3&4, based on your drawing above. Since the endcaps are already wired and have only 2 wires, they have already "jumped" or connected pins 1&2 together as well as 3&4 together. So, you will want to connect both blue wires from the ballast to one of the wires from the end cap, does not matter whhich one. Twist all three wires together in a clockwise direction, trim the bare ends to about 3/8" and use a yellow or orange wirenut. Twist the two red wirse and remaining endcap wire together and repeat the above. You should be all set.

FYI, if you had a ballast with 6 wires, 2-blue, 2-red and 2-yellow, the wiring is a little different. Generally, in this case you will connect 2-blue to one side of a bulb and a single yellow with a jumper wire to the other. Use the 2 red and the other yellow for bulb two. Some of the T5 ballast (which technically are the same and T5 HO ballasts will power PC and visa versa) use a slightly different wiring setup but that will be shown on th eballast case. Basically, with ballasts like the Advance Centinums for 2 bulbs you use the wiring description I just described but for one bulb you use only the red and blue wires, not the yellow. Older style "normal" PC ballasts for using a 2 bulb ballast with only one bulb you simply don't use the blue wires and one yellow wires.

Sorry to get off on a tangent but hopefully all that made sense. To reiderate, in your case twist one endcap wire with two ballast wires of the same color and use a wirenut. Repeat for the remaining endcap wire and two remaining ballast leads.


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## Yeaulman (Jun 23, 2005)

Thanks, it all made sense.... I work for an electrical engineering firm but we have never really worked with compact fluorescents like this yet. After you explained it, it all mades sense  Thanks!


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