Re: [APD] Aromat Ballasts

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

High frequency doesn't improve the efficiency the way is can with fluorescents, so you don't see many electronic ballasts except to handle the starting and control the wattage as the bulb ages. Other than that, they are very simple devices -- a starter or starter circuit, capacitor and coil with multiple windings. No reason these things can't be made to last many years. It's those coils that get costly, the circuits are cheap once they are massed produced. I wonder why they don't put inverter cirucits in the ballast, raising the freqs, so that smaller, relatively less expensive coils could be used, avoiding flicker, and audible noise from the ballast???? Perhaps, without the efficiency improvements, the market isn't driven in that directdion. Perhaps the Co8ils need to be large due to the relatively high current levels (compared to fluorescents) so there is less reason to try to make them small.
 
sh
 

 
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----- Original Message ----
From: Jerry Baker <jerry at bakerweb_biz>
To: aquatic plants digest <aquatic-plants at actwin_com>
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 12:50:26 PM
Subject: Re: [APD] Aromat Ballasts


S. Hieber wrote:
> They're new to me. What's the "hot stuff" part about them? The specs appear to be good but conventional.

Apparently the fact that they last longer (bigger caps???) and light 
bulbs without flickering (which the Icecaps at least could not do for 
the Iwasakis).

-- 
Jerry Baker
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