No, but it's usually quite easy to run a 220V line to wherever you want to put the bulb.
No, the ballast has to be matched to the lamp. 250 watt ballast, 250 watt lamp. Also be sure to match the lamp type to the proper ballast even though the wattage is the same. HPS ballast to HPS lamp, Metal halide ballast to metal halide lamp and mercury vapour lamp to mercury vapour ballast.
No. The lamp has to match the ballast. The lamp will not ignite if the wrong ballast is used.
No. A mercury vapor lamp will work on a metal halide ballast, but not the other way around.
Yes.
Yes assuming the ballast is also for a metal halide lamp.
Yes the ballast and starter are the same you can run halide in hps, but not hps in halide.
A metal halide ballast works just by transforming the line voltage into much more useful voltage to the metal halide, and by regulating the current so that the bulb will have its useful life at the most.
Make sure you are using a metal halide bulb and the ballast is matched to the wattage on the bulb. These both must be correct.
No. The bulb has to match the ballast wattage exactly. And you can't interchange different lamps (like metal halide) either. The ballast is specific to that wattage and lamp type. The bulb will either burn out quickly or just not work properly at all
It depends if its AC or DC, you have to match the Watts and the AC/DC.. so for example a 150watt UHP AC ballast will work with a 150watt AC metal halide bulb. dont take my word on this though, this is 2nd hand information.
I actually have a 400w hps ballast and I can also use my 400w metal halide bulb in it with no problem. So what your saying is they do, but they dont? the answer is, they dont. You can get universal bulbs hps to plug into a mh ballast they have a miniturized igniter inside the bulb. As I understand it, a 400W metal halide bulb can be used with a 400W hps ballast, but not the converse. A MH bulb has the igniter in the bulb, and the HPS has it in the ballast--which pretty much goes along with your comment above. Apparently the double presence of the igniter in the HPS setup is OK.you can run metal halide in same wattage's but not hps in metal halide systems.you can run such as (same wattage's)250 watt metal halide-400 watt halide ect in hps systems but not hps bulbs in halide systems. they make conversion bulbs to run halide in hps as well and vice versa.
The light bulb needs to match the ballast in the fixture.