Re: flourescent tubes

FLUORESCENT FFS!!!!

The brain got scrambled by todays tedious job.

Its not the real tnp, no typing and spelling mistakes that he is too idle to fix.

What sort of cakes are you making?

did you buy organic flourescent tubes by mistake ?.

for an led unit .....

then the tube did not stay lit without the starter in.

NT

Good grief. Turnip spots a spelling error.

Probably. The starter thinks its not struck so its probably not really working very well, assuming of course its the right starter in the first place. This may sound daft, but simply swap it for another tube if its a double and if the other one shows the problem its proved. I even used to get a couple of months out of one by simply turning it around. No idea why. Brian

While you are all bickering over spellink, let me say that a tube right on the edge of going out can be used by simply removing the starter once its been on for a bit. it seems that the tube heat can keep it conducting, but not as efficiently as it should be, indeed lamps working like this can be very strobe like and indeed sometimes you see kind of waves snaking along making parts of the phosphor brighter or darker. I guess its to do with whether the gas inside is being ionised enough to keep the thing alight, the starter system often detects tubes working inefficiently this way ands not yet struck and tries to pulse them with a high voltage but all that does is making go on and off. Change the tube before it wears out the starter! I'm assuming here this is your bog standard little heater bimetal strip wotsit. Brian

That's uncommon. There are 2 possible explanations.

1. poor contacts causing V drop
2. A tube where one end only is losing emission, but not enough to extinguish it.

NT

Not much point asking if you disregard the answers.

Pot calling kettle black did spring to mind.

You come across as utterly incompetent. You were told the likely issue and you ignored them.

You've been told many times it's the starter. Perhaps you should stoop down to accept others' advice.

Once upon a time there were a range of starters to suit a range of tubes, but manufacturers have cut costs and make only starters that are meant to work for all tubes. The trouble is, they don't.

I like the electronic ones in the transparent green casings. They start tubes faster and with less flicker and do a good job of starting aged tubes that don't really want to start.

SteveW