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Home Repair - - If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Otherwise look here.
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Posted by desgnr on September 21, 2009, 9:45 am
I have a 4' Florescent fixture with 2 F40cw tubes.
The tubes look like there half lit, sometimes they will fully light & other
times there very low.
I don't know if it is the fixture or tubes that are bad.
I took 2 tubes out of another fixture that works properly & put them in the
Fixture in question & they also lit very low.
So next i put the questonable Tubes in the good fixture & they also lit very
low in the good fixture.
So i am back to the question which are bad or if the Tubes & fixture are
both bad.
--
Dell Inspiron
Pentium dual-core 2.2 GHz
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
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Posted by HeyBub on September 21, 2009, 11:08 am
desgnr wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> I have a 4' Florescent fixture with 2 F40cw tubes.
> The tubes look like there half lit, sometimes they will fully light &
> other times there very low.
> I don't know if it is the fixture or tubes that are bad.
> I took 2 tubes out of another fixture that works properly & put them
> in the Fixture in question & they also lit very low.
> So next i put the questonable Tubes in the good fixture & they also
> lit very low in the good fixture.
> So i am back to the question which are bad or if the Tubes & fixture
> are both bad.
Possibly neither. This often happens when the ground connection is bad.
What's the ground connection got to do with it? A grounded reflector
increases the capacitance of the discharge path in the tube to help in
getting the conductance started. Or something like that. It's similar to the
ground effect in aviation, only different.
By the way, it's only nine months until the government-ordered demise of
magnetic ballasts.
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Posted by stan on September 21, 2009, 11:40 am
show/hide quoted text
> desgnr wrote:
> > I have a 4' Florescent fixture with 2 F40cw tubes.
> > The tubes look like there half lit, sometimes they will fully light &
> > other times there very low.
> > I don't know if it is the fixture or tubes that are bad.
> > I took 2 tubes out of another fixture that works properly & put them
> > in the Fixture in question & they also lit very low.
> > So next i put the questonable Tubes in the good fixture & they also
> > lit very low in the good fixture.
> > So i am back to the question which are bad or if the Tubes & fixture
> > are both bad.
> Possibly neither. This often happens when the ground connection is bad.
> What's the ground connection got to do with it? A grounded reflector
> increases the capacitance of the discharge path in the tube to help in
> getting the conductance started. Or something like that. It's similar to =
the
show/hide quoted text
> ground effect in aviation, only different.
> By the way, it's only nine months until the government-ordered demise of
> magnetic ballasts.
Hey! What's that about a governement mandated discontinuance of
magnetic ballasts?
What jurisdiction are we talking about? Federal, state, provincial????
Which country? Australia, Canada, UK, USA etc?
I'm in Canada, not in the industry and with enough spare (old style)
ballasts; and also a couple of electronic ones, for the string in my
workshop) to last out my lifetime.
But definitely interested in what's happening. (Like the Australian
mandate of the use CFLs!).
More, please?
Regards terry.
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Posted by sligoNoSPAMjoe on September 22, 2009, 8:19 am
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:40:52 -0700 (PDT), stan
...
show/hide quoted text
>Hey! What's that about a governement mandated discontinuance of
>magnetic ballasts?
>What jurisdiction are we talking about? Federal, state, provincial????
>Which country? Australia, Canada, UK, USA etc?
>I'm in Canada, not in the industry and with enough spare (old style)
>ballasts; and also a couple of electronic ones, for the string in my
>workshop) to last out my lifetime.
>But definitely interested in what's happening. (Like the Australian
>mandate of the use CFLs!).
>More, please?
>Regards terry.
http://www.aboutlightingcontrols.org/education/papers/ballast_law.shtml
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Posted by N8N on September 21, 2009, 11:10 am
show/hide quoted text
> I have a 4' Florescent fixture with 2 F40cw tubes.
> The tubes look like there half lit, sometimes they will fully light & oth=
> times there very low.
> I don't know if it is the fixture or tubes that are bad.
> I took 2 tubes out of another fixture that works properly & put them in t=
> Fixture in question & they also lit very low.
> So next i put the questonable Tubes in the good fixture & they also lit v=
ery
show/hide quoted text
> low in the good fixture.
> So i am back to the question which are bad or if the Tubes & fixture are
> both bad.
> --
> Dell Inspiron
> Pentium dual-core 2.2 GHz
> 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM
> Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
is it possible that some of the keystones in the questionable fixture
have loose connections, thus causing arcing and corrosion on the tube
pins? So that when you put the tubes in the good fixture they are
still not making good contact?
nate
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> The tubes look like there half lit, sometimes they will fully light &
> other times there very low.
> I don't know if it is the fixture or tubes that are bad.
> I took 2 tubes out of another fixture that works properly & put them
> in the Fixture in question & they also lit very low.
> So next i put the questonable Tubes in the good fixture & they also
> lit very low in the good fixture.
> So i am back to the question which are bad or if the Tubes & fixture
> are both bad.