4' fluorescent bulbs burn out a LOT!

but I don't have a Menards!

That fact alone used to be a good thing.and you would have been thankful.

Reply to
Tom Kohlman
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Mine used to burn out a lot, and now that I realize why, and how much money I wasted, it makes me sick. In my case, the bulbs would barely light or not light at all until lunchtime. In the link I provide, it said if this happens in high humidity (which is what we have in the San Antonio area), clean off the bulbs with a wet rag. Yeah? What does that have to do with anything. It seems that there is an interaction between the grounded casing and the surface of the bulb to get it going. I cleaned my bulbs off and nearly all of them started working again. Also, a good ground is important. The article also tells how to check the ballasts with a volt-meter.

Reply to
Preston Andreas

Dave, it might be worth finding someone with a line voltage monitor and letting it run for a day or 2. It is possible to have spikes and excess noise on you electrical service. I would think that it would also effect incandescent bulbs but it is hard to tell.

BRuce

Bay Area Dave wrote:

Reply to
BRuce

If your bulbs flicker for a significant time when coming on and you get blackened ends on the tubes before they die you have crappy fixtures that either don't make reliable contact with the bulbs, or have cheap ballasts. The cheap T8 fixtures I bought at Lowes (or was it Home Depot) are showing good bulb life but I think that generally you get what you pay for. Since you have electronic ballasts, I would first try using some T8 bulbs and see what kind of life you get. If those burn out early too, then replace your fixtures with some higher quality T8 fixtures from an electrical supply/lighting store. You will pay more than at the BORG, but in the long run you will save money by putting in better fixtures and getting longer bulb life.

This advice assumes that you don't have problems with big voltage spikes in your feeds.

Reply to
Steve James

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