I have 3 identical fluorescent fixtures in the garage about 15 years old, 2 bulb 4' rapid start. A clue to their usage is that none of them had had any bulbs changed in their life.
One of the units showed intermittent flickering sometimes one bulb was good/bright, sometimes dim, the worse/dimmest bulb had a dark spot at the end.
So I changed the bulbs, with no improvement. Used another new bulb. Same thing. Took two working bulbs from the other fixture and put them in. No improvement. I began to suspect something was wrong with the ballast, but I wasn't smart enough to do any troubleshooting. All I have is a little volt/ohm meter I use to troubleshoot computer power supply problems.
So, I went to Home Depot and bought a ballast aided by an experienced sales person who understood what fixture and bulbs I had. The new ballast was not as 'fat' as the other but was the same length and color coding of the wires.
I disassembled the fixture/ballast and replaced the ballast using wire nuts acquired during the ballast trip and reconnected, reassembled, and resecured the ceiling fixture.
No improvement.
Now I don't know if my original ballast was good or bad and/or if the replacement ballast is good or bad. I would like to do some of the diagnostic testing I didn't do during my original guesstimation that it was/ must be/ the ballast.
How can I:
- benchtest my old ballast I removed - test the integrity of the new ballast installed - troubleshoot my malfunctioning fluorescent
If I could satisfactorily prove to myself that the new ballast isn't good, then I could return it; but under the present conditions I have no clue what is wrong.