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Re: ballasts
In a message dated 98-10-07 15:54:06 EDT, Beverly Erlebacher sez:
> Sounds like they just aren't making them there tar ballasts the way
> they used to in the good old days.... :-)
>
> In 1977 some friends got a summer job wrecking a factory and they gave
> me some ceiling fixtures that were headed for the dumpster. I used them
> for some home built racks I used to raise garden transplants for over
> *20 years*, running 3-4 months per year. Some of them failed a couple
> of years ago, but the rest are still going. This is in addition to
> however long they were in the factory ceiling, which may have been
> quite a while.
They ain't makin' them F40CW lamps like they used to in the good old days.
It sounds like your ballasts died a premature death a few years ago cuz you
got ahold of some "watt miser" or "ES" (energy saver) lamps. They say F40,
but they are really 34W, and they have a different arc voltage, and they don't
start well in cold weather, and they eat tar ballasts for lunch. I converted
most of my F40 fixtures to F32T8's. One of these days I'm gonna see if the
leftover 40W tar ballasts will work with 39W and 50W long T5 compact
fluorescents. I know they won't work with 40W CFL's, those behave more like
T8's.
regards,
bob (who rants too much about 40W vs. 34W lamps)