| Effects of Input Voltage (by Brad Clampitt) |
Ultrasun tanning equipment is designed to run with 220 volts AC. Because of the nature of the ballasts, if you send more voltage into the ballast, more voltage comes out of the ballast. This higher voltage drives the lamp harder and the lamp will have greater output. The reverse is also true. If you send less than 220 volts to the bed, less voltage will come out the ballast and the lamp output will go down.
With this in mind, it seems that you would want to send as much voltage to the bed as you can to improve output of the lamps. However there are drawbacks to sending excessive voltage to the bed. Ultrasun recommends that you have between 220v to 225v to the bed.
It needs to be understood that the lamp ballasts are not the only components in the bed that get voltage. With higher voltage sent to the bed, the amp draw also increases. Other parts in the bed such as the timer board, cooling fans, contactor relays, and all the wiring also “see” the excess voltage. All these components will run hotter when extra voltage is used. It shortens the life of every electrical component in the bed, including the lamps and ballasts. Igniters and lamp starters also receive higher voltage when higher voltage is used. The starter’s job is to heat the electrodes inside the ends of the lamps so the lamps will start. If the element at the ends of the lamps is getting too hot from excess voltage, the excess heat will make the ends of the lamps turn dark or black.
Bed maintenance costs will go up as you need to replace parts that reach the end of their life sooner. Electrical power costs will go up – not only to ruin the bed, but also to ruin the A/C in the salon to get rid of more heat.
If you feel that it is worth the extra costs to improve tanning performance to send excess voltage to your equipment, keep in mind that you will eventually have more down time. It will be more important to keep back up parts on hand to make the necessary repairs quickly and make yourself very familiar with equipment troubleshooting.
In general, if you run high voltage to your equipment it puts more electrical and thermal stress on the equipment, operating costs increase and you shorten the life of very component in the bed. Like anything, if you “run it hard” it won’t last as long before needing repairs.
Breaker Trips When the Bed is Turned On
The purpose of a circuit breaker is to protect the circuit from allowing too many amps to pass through the breaker. Amps are drawn by the tanning bed.
There are two main scenarios for breakers tripping. One scenario is that the breaker trips when a bed is first installed. The second is when you start to have breaker problems after the bed has been installed and has been running fine for some time. |
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