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Re: T-* ballasts
Paul wrote:
BTW does Chroma 50s come in 4' T-8 tubes? I like the color of
these, I'll have to do some more looking around.
The specs on the ballasts are "PowerLighting Ultra-Miser, Electronic
Ballasts
cat.# E432PI120G11". I picked up a number of them (real cheap) when
Builder's
Square went out of business.
I reply:
I think the closest thing to a Chroma 50 would be a 950 lamp. The 950s cost
a lot more than 850s as they don't sell very many of them. The 850s are
more of triphosphor lamp but they seem to work pretty well.
It does not look as though you are ever going to get information like
ballast factors on those ballasts you have without going through a lot of
trouble. For example you could use a lux meter to measure the light output
of a ballast with known B.F. and then make a comparison with the output you
get from the ballasts you have. Too much trouble if you ask me.
One good clue to the B.F. on an electronic ballast is to check out the
amperage rating on the ballast case. 3 lamp ballasts that have high ballast
factors typically draw about .96 amps. This is not a sure thing however as a
very badly designed ballasts might draw a lot of amps but be very
inefficient at producing light. The method of rating the amperage of the
ballast may also vary between manufacturers but of the instant start
ballasts I have checked out the amperage rating closely corelates to the
ballast factor.
Wayne