Colour Matching Fluorescent Lamp

[Rod Hewitt]

I wish to use a couple of colour matching fluorescent lamps (e.g 4ft 40w Colour Matching Fluorescent Tube). Unfortunately, these are 40W and 38mm

- which means that they don't fit many standard fittings.

Any ideas where to source a suitable fitting with a high frequency ballast suitable for these?

Thanks Rod

[Andrew Gabriel]

A skip? This size (T12) is effectively obsolete now, having been replaced by T8 tubes. I also doubt you will find 40W T12 electronic control gear now, although it might have existed some years back. You will probably get away with using 36W electronic control gear (I think both tubes run at 420ma), which you could retrofit into an old fitting.

[Rod Hewitt]

[e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) wrote in news:bl2feu$4jd$ [e-mail]:

Andrew,

Thanks - a nice idea :-)

I was surprised that TLC sell the tubes but nothing to run them in. Are there any more modern sized colour mathing lamps - or is it inherent to the technology that they are made in this size?

Rod

[Andrew Gabriel]

It may be -- I've never looked at detail into the phosphors they use. The T8 tubes can use more expensive phosphors because they need significantly less of it. Normally, these are tri-phosphate tubes using, IIRC rare-earth phosphates, rather than the older T12's halophosphates. However, a full spectrum lamp is going to be quite different in this respect and I don't know what they use, but it may be nearer to the halophosphates.

I would be surprised if T8 full spectrum lamps were not available, but be warned that the term "full spectrum" is subject to bad misuse by Marketing types, when they often mean High Colour Temperature and not at all full spectrum and high Colour Rendering Index (CRI), which is what you're really after for colour matching.