Do all flourescent tubes not work well in cold weather, or are there some that do better than others? Or is it a matter of the ballast getting cold? Or does a cold day just show that the tubes are getting ready to burn out anyway. Wha sup wi dis?
It's the magnetic ballast that cause the trouble in cold weather..
I'm in the process of upgrading my shop to the new cold weather electronic ballasts that are suppose to work fine down to 0 degree..
I have/had 7 magnetic 2 bulb 48" in my unheated work shop and intially some would work in cold weather but after about 7 years, I only had 2 bulbs left working of the 14..
Admittedly these were the cheap shop fixtures but now, for about the same price I can get a T8 48" two bulb electronic at Home Depot.. The bulbs are different than the the old T12s but not that much..
They all have some problems with cold. However the old magnetic ballast were really bad. New electronic ballast help a lot, you might be able to change out those. The other part is the lamp itself. The T8 (smaller around) lamps do better than the old T12s.
If these are just those dual 4 foot garage fixtures, just replace the whole fixture with new cold weather rated ones with T8 lamps. They will work a lot better, be brighter and quieter.
They start to dim and flicker at about 50 degrees. There are fixtures made for cold applications, but they are much more expensive. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
You need what is called "high output" tubes and fixtures for cold locations. They are a bit more expensive, but that up-front expense isn't the true cost anyway (true cost is always in the power with lighting).
Obviously this is nothing new. You don't need electronics. Reliable fluorescent outdoor signs and lighting have been around for a long time.
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Someone mentioned here a week or 2 ago that they picked up some $10-15 USD ones at Home Depot. I looked at Lowes the other day & found some for $18 that are supposed to be good to -20 F.
That's a lot more than the $10 I paid for the cheap shoplights I bought 10 yrs ago, but it is about what the same fixture without the cold weather ballast/transformer was at Lowes last week.
I don't see the light on Lowes website - nor did they have a price marked on the shelf- so these might have been a 'special' of some kind. But it is worth looking over the shelves at your local borg for lights that are good in cold weather.
Jim
Youi can buy a special tube for cold weather. Ordinary tubes do not work in cold environments. ds
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-snip- I just ran across my Lowe's sales slip. The number on the slip is
133982, but that doesn't bring anything up at the Lowes site online. They are 4' Stainless Steel [colored] with a pull chain & 6' cord.And I mis-remembered the price-- they were only $14.47 USD.
Jim
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