The fluorescent tubes in the laundry room fail to illuminate properly and the diagnoses here is defective ballast.
I always thought that the "ballast" is part of the tube / bulb but apparently it's part of the fixture.
So, I guess that in 2010 when we have to use fluorescent bulbs throughout the house, we will need to buy new table lamps, ceiling lights, etc. Is that right?
Usually the long tubes that have a pin or 2 pins on each end go into a fixture that will have a ballast in the fixture. Most fixtures (but not all) will have one ballast for two tubes. That is if you have one tube, there will be one ballast for that tube, if there are 2 tubes, there will still be one ballast. If you have 4 tubes in a fixture most of the time it will have 2 ballasts. The old ones are iron wrapped with wire like a transfromer. Very heavy for the size. The newer ones may be electronic and do not weigh very much.
The bulbs (tubes) that go into your table lamp and such that replace the bulbs with filiments have a form of ballast built into the base of the bulb. That is you just unscrew the old bulb and screw in the new one in your table lamp and all is well. Same for any filiment type bulb. No differance to the user.
It's too bad we went down this path. Right now we throw away perfectly good "ballasts" with every CFL. Some of the early CFL-like lamps had an electronic ballast which you keep, just replacing the lamp part. Kind of like the circular fluorescents and the long tubes.
On 6/12/2009 5:34 AM Art Todesco spake thus:
Right. CFLs, while more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs, are hardly "green". This one oughta be forced back to the drawing board.
Unless your fixture use 'starters' in addition to the ballasts! However it appears that with the exception of several very old two and three tube fixtures fluorescents I have stashed away somewhere, most more modern North American fixtures (Those designed to operate at
1120, 208 or 347 volts 60 hertz) do not use starters. While in other countries using say 230 volts 50 hertz they still do seem to be fairly common? Further comments welcomed.Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required