Need Electrician's Help w/ Metal Halide Ballasts
 

I was cleaning up a friend's set-up and shortened the extension cord that was leading to the ballasts. The connection of the extension cord to ballast box (3x400w cap and coil) had what it looked like water contact in the past and had a heck of a time separating them so I ended up just cutting the cord...unplugged the other end of course .

The lead running to the ballasts weren't typically color coded (Blk/Wh/Grn) but blue, green w/white stripe and brown. After looking at the old connection and comparing relative positions, I wired blue to black, green/white to white and brown to green in the new plug.

I plugged them in and the lights do not fire. With one of those beeping pen style current detectors, there is power running in the extension cord and the lead to the ballast. Unplugged the box containing the ballasts sets off the detector.

I thought about switching the corresponding black and white of the leads to the ballast in the new plug but I remember HS shop that one can cause BIG problems reversing polarity in capacitors.

Any ideas or am I better off getting an electrician to check it out?

TIA

I think what you want is:

brown conductor to the black in your new cord
blue to the white
green/white to the green

Thanks for the info PD :). The whole unit ended up rewired with typical white/black/green wires and now it works. The corals are now happy.