Them Flour Essence Lights

[John Rumm]

I have met some qualified electricians who are fairly clueless about the internal mechanisms of things like strip lights. They can wire them up, or replace them, but would not know where to start when attempting to repair one at module level.

Its sounds like when Dave goes to actually do the job, he will know exactly how to get all the lights working quickly, without blanket replacement of everything, and without spending hours titting about swapping bits from here to there. No doubt if you were the customer you would be satisfied with the result.

Hence, I am not quite sure what you are actually complaining about. Researching how to do something effectively before diving straight in is not a sign of weakness, or lack of skill - in fact quite the reverse.

If you have something against learning, and hence are going to limit yourself to taking on only those projects where you believe you know all the answers right from the outset, you seem destined to achieve mediocrity. Personally I would hate to think that today is as good as I will ever be.

[The Medway Handyman]

Thanks Ron. None of the ballasts had any discolouration, no smell reported or evident, not 'very' hot to touch, no tripping of breaker. Seems more like a starter mismatch to me.

[jsabine]

Not being up on the technical terms, but having changed a fair number of the bloody things, that sounds right.

An FSU (Universal) starter *ought* to work but often won't. An FS2 works for 2 foot tubes. An FS8 works for 4 & 5 foot tubes. An FS10 works for 6-8 foot tubes.

The Philips ones (marked as S2, S8, S10) seem reliable and are clearly marked: the Osram equivalents are also decent but are only distinguishable by tiny moulded lettering around the top.

[Kevin]

I am far from brash and thats one of my problems (face to face) and most behind a keyboard type things they would not have the balls to type Even if it is their own handyman who is telling

not everything and I doubt if anyone is, I never tried plastering or building a brick wall or artexing a ceiling or jointing worktops apart from those jobs I have never employed any other worker to work on my house and no its not a shit hole before you ask :-), I just realise some jobs need some skills or tools I dont have, I could build a wall or try the other jobs but I could never get the required results first time that's why training courses for some jobs are needed

but getting back to the OP's question its not hard to try the non lighting tubes in a working fitting,then the starters so you have a pile of working parts then try the known good ones in the non working ones

[Andrew Gabriel]

Actually it's nearer 10 components with some non-obvious interactions between working and non-working parts.

I've never met an electrician on-site who is able to logically and correctly fix these two series-pair fluorescent fittings, and I've seen plenty trying to. I've even got a couple of the

4 tube fittings which electricians removed and chucked in the skip claiming they were dead, when it was simply the case they they hadn't yet done the one of many tens of random substitutions which resulted in enough working components in the right places to make the thing run. (They make excellent lights for painting a room if you prop them up against the opposite wall;-)

If Dave takes away the correct bits of information he has been given in this thread, he will be able to do the job more effectively than any electrician they are likely to call out.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Electronic ballasts (usually smaller, lighter weight, and no starter required) have been much less reliable than the older magnetic ballasts. (In the US, it's the other way around, because their magnetic ballasts are significantly less reliable than ours). Manufacturers claim they've fixed the short life of electronic ballasts, but reality is that such warm electronic parts are never realistically going to routinely get up to 250,000 hours that magnetic ballasts historically have no problem meeting. Electronic ballasts may eventually get good enough that they mostly outlive the typical service life of fittings between site refurbishment.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I haven't checked what you claim here, but you also have to factor in series pair tubes which Dave has. They need different starters (actually, they're the starters for 120V mains supplies).

Often the wrong starter will appear to work, at least until the electrician has got out the door, or you try turning on the lights at a different ambient temperature. You may not get correct tube life though, even if it does appear to work.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Being able to pass a relatively simple exam more concerned with the right way and the wrong way to lay cables a la regulations, is a far cry from understanding electrical engineering theory.

Most domestic sparkies have as little understanding of electricity as domestic plumbers do of hydraulics. Or carpenters of geometry. To put it bluntly, they don't need to.

Having worked as a professional design engineer for many years, the amazing thing is just how few people understand any of it whatsoever: its a triumph of productions engineering, systems and books of rules, to ensure that this does not impact negatively on those that deploy the technology.

Faced with one of my first exposures to fault finding and testing on the production/repair line, I was amazed to see not the experience qualified engineer, but a teenage girl on minimum wage. "I just remove all these (pointing at the power transistors and drivers) "and anything burnt like these" (pointing to a pile of scorched resistors) "and replace them with these" (pointing to an equally scabby pile of used transistors) "that Richard" (pointing to a half an engineer) has tested on his gadget thing" (a basic test box to rest that transistors sill had diode junctions).

Her success rate was 95%, and the avergag time to fix was 8 minutes. At the end of the day 'Richard" would take the pile of removed devices, and test each one, throwing away the truly dead, and resurrecting the 'at least half alive' to a pile of 'spares for repairs'

I got to look at the odd failed 5%. Probably took me an hour to trace the faults. Eventually they just got scrapped.

[jsabine]

I freely confess much ignorance ...

I *think* that FS2 starters are appropriate for 2 foot tubes in series: that is, most of my experience is with 4-tube fittings which fail either inner-inner or outer-outer, and where you can normally replace one starter or one tube to relight both. [I dont think I've ever seen a single totally dark tube in one of these fittings - a single tube glowing very dully, however, is a different matter.]

4/5 foot tubes seem to fail as singles even in a twin fitting, so I guess they're not in series, and I never see 6ft+ tubes. I know that the FS8 starter at least appears to work: I confess I'm relying on the product description when I say the FS10 is good for 6ft tubes.

This thread's been more than useful in terms of the trouble-shooting tips to be gained - I am very, very ignorant of how fluo fittings work, and, like Dave, I'm not happy about just playing swapsies with parts until by chance it springs into life.

[Appin]

The message from Kevin contains these words:

And some of the rest of us can't believe the complete inability to spell simple words such as "knack" and might prefer to trust the abilities of someone who could read and write.

[terry]

Nah: Give it break! Always a chance to learn something!

And often by posting an incorrect reply and then being corrected, and told, sometimes in no small way, that one is an ignoramus, or worse, one also learns!

And there are always 'spell checkers'. But what can one do with a spell-check that questions Churchill or Roosevelt but does not catch 'Flourescent' instead of 'Fluorescent'. Or even 'Florescent'! The first one sounding like baking and the latter like some kind of deodorant!

Now my question? Why the use of 'starters' in UK 230 volt fixtures? Here in North America where the domestic lighting and wall outlet voltages are mostly 115-120 volts 60 hertz AC, starters have disappeared and one only sees them occasionally in very, very old fixtures. A few old ones we have rebuilt (for use over work benches etc.) we have changed the ballasts eliminating the starters completely. Just curious.

[John Rumm]

Possibly because at 230+ volt you can reliably strike the tube without any need for back EMF tricks etc. Hence a simple ballast and starter make for a cheap and reliable solution.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Starters don't work well on 120V, so you have to have significantly more complicated control gear to drive tubes. Starters work fine on 230V.

[Kevin]

fixing/making things has f*ck all to do with spelling, and you are welcome to come round my house and see for yourself, but then you cant hide behind a keyboard

[The Natural Philosopher]

spelling is simply a question of making something - a word - according to en external specification. the language definition.

Why would someone who cant be arsed to find the correct spelling be arsed to construct according to principles?

Arguably in many cases its not that important, but sometimes it is, and its good to be in the habit, maybe.

[Bob Mannix]

Indeed, otherwise, in a similar vein, you read the above and concentrate on the two "its" that should be "it's" and forget what was being said :o)

[Kevin]

and you Nat piss Mr perfect never get any thing wrong do you? you might as well f*ck off as well as your posting/typing is no better than mine and I could quote loads but I cant be arsed

[Man at B&Q]

From one who can't be arsed to check his own postings for the frequent spelling mistakes and/or typos. ROTFLMAO!

[Kevin]

and going by how the great Nats piss worked for NASA I wonder if he worked on the shuttles???

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. I admit it, and don't mind you pointing it out.