Fluoro tube and starter

[Pete Verdon]

I've fitted the first part of my new kitchen lighting, a fluorescent batten across the top of the cupboards. The colour from it looks moderately horrible; turns out it's a 4000K "cool white" tube (came with the batten). I want to replace this with either 2700 or 3000 .

Unfortunately TLC don't seem to have a great range of tubes, and what they do have they don't list colour temps for.

Any suggestions on where to obtain the tubes I want, either localish to Southampton or, if online, actually pack them properly?

Also, the starter that came with the pack was a flickering type, like we had at school, and not particularly fast at that. Can modern instant ones be had for retrofitting?

Cheers,

Pete

[Andrew Gabriel]

Didn't B&Q start life in Southampton? Also, any local electrical wholesaler. What size and power rating is the tube? The colour temperature you're after will be marked on the tube as 827 (2700K) or 830 (3000K).

The retrofit version is a Pulsestarter (model such as EFS 600). Wickes have them hanging on the shelf. They can be quite noisy starting because of the waveform they generate whilst starting - depends on quality of fitting and ballast.

The non-retrofit version was to replace the starter with a quickstart or rapidstart transformer, but you won't find them anymore, and even if you could, you might as well simply chuck out the ballast and fit an electronic one. Usually easily found on eBay.

[Alan]

In message , Pete Verdon wrote

TLC do them

[Pete Verdon]

meant the tube wouldn't light until a couple of seconds after flicking the switch. I've just found my housemate clattering the switches vigorously up and down because the room didn't light up instantly as it did with the previous (horrible) incandescant fitting.

The handful of CFLs I have light instantly, even if not at full brightness. I assumed the same was possible on a tube. It's a 6ft "Pop Pack" batten, if it matters, and I don't mind changing the gubbins inside if that's required.

Pete

[Pete Verdon]

I think my local branch is actually the first one ever. Very small by current standards :-)

Given TLC don't seem to have what I want (a first) I'd pretty much discounted B&Q. Should I give it a go anyway?

...except TLC, apparently, unless they're just very bad at listing them on their Web catalogue.

6ft, 70W. Might go for slightly more power if possible; will depend how much difference painting the ceiling white (from bare plaster) makes.

Cheers, but I didn't see any useful info at all on this tube. The box had a label with some cryptic numbers, but none that seemed useful. I found the colour temp by googling the part number.

Pete

[Malcolm]

No - it was across Portswood Rd in some old buildings - recommended to me by FiL to be in 1971 - prices were good and it looked like an expansion of a traditional ironmongers gone self-service - nostalgia!

Malcolm

[Andrew Gabriel]

You might struggle to find anything less than 3500K in 6'. It's not often used in the home, only commercially where anything less than 3500K is rarely required.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I just stuck an EFS600 in a fitting to check, and this is true. I used to use some Pulsestarters which were pretty instant start. I trawled the shelves in the garage, but I can't find them now.

I subsequently changed the control gear to electronic instant start. I would suggest you do the same since you want instant start, but it's quite hard to find and identify instant start ballasts - most are preheat, and many of those call themselves instant start (incorrectly in my view). You really need to get the exact part number and then check manufacturer's datasheet. Most electronic preheat gear preheats for 1 - 1.5 seconds, rather than the 2.3 seconds of the EFS600.

[Dave Osborne]

I've just had a similar experience as it happens. I changed the fluorescent fitting in the kitchen for a fancy twin fluorescent fitting with T5 tubes. Absolutely instant start - brilliant.

However, I changed the old bulkhead in the utility room for a bog-standard T8 switch-start fluorescent. Very slow cos it's rather cold out there. Fitted an electronic starter (£1.64 or something ridiculous off eBay). Got bored with the fact that it took about 4 seconds before it struck the tube. Changed it for a Tridonic Atco HF ballast (also off eBay) thinking it would be instant, but it's not - it takes about 1.5 seconds to fire up the tube. 1.5 seconds is ok - you at least see the preheat straight away so you know it's happening!

I think I read somewhere that T5 tubes/HF control gear are more likely to instant start than T8, but I can't now find the reference.

[NT]

Instant starting is possible but hard on tube life, so not normally done.

Another option is to add a filament lamp and relay so it comes on instantly and goes off when the tube lgihts - this is easy to add to a glowstart fitting.

NT

[Pete Verdon]

OK, so it sounds like I've actually installed completely the wrong thing for my purposes :-(

I don't have the time this morning, but this stuff really needs to go in the wiki, which I was using to choose my design.

Pete

[Andrew Gabriel]

If anything, my experiance has been very slightly the other way around. The only instant start ballasts I know of at the moment are the Philips Matchbox Blue ones (Red ones are preheat). These are only for small tubes though - the largest ones are T5 up to 900mm and T8 2'.

CPC used to do T8 Relco instant start ballasts which I have used with 5' tubes. There was nothing saying they were instant start - I discovered this by buying and trying one. Then Relco changed them to preheat without changing the part number, and then CPC stopped doing them anyway. I've been using several of the Relco instant start ballasts for some 8 years now, and they haven't resulted in short tube life (don't know how long though, as no tubes in them have failed yet).

If it hadn't been protected, I might have made a number of corrections to it. I started doing so some time back when it was freely editable.

[<me9]

I have one of those in the light in the utility room. I'm often out of the room again before any sign of light from the lamp. One of these days I'll get a round tuit.

[mumart]

Bit late to weigh in on this, but Tabelek Control Systems make a good quality rapid starter switch, which strikes in about 0.3s.

[NT]

The spam load made non-protection unworkable. I'm not sure why you've had any difficulty editing, you should have access all areas there. I'll unprotect it for a bit, hopefully it wont get spam bombed for a while.

I'm also a bit puzzled by Pete's comments, I'm not clear how the article might have failed to direct you to the right fitting and tube types.

NT