nice little fixture.

Thanks, haven't seen a lot of F20 shoplights or even single lamp ones. These must have been a special order.

Nice. I would have gotten a 400w probe MH lowbay from my school, but it was too big to take on the bus and my parents wouldn't take me back to my school "just for a light". In other words, i never got a 70's lowbay.

Thanks, it's a really well built little fixture too.

Yeah my grandpa's fluoros are well built too. The metal is thicker. Modern fluorescent lights you can bend the casing with your bare hands, while the older ones are stronger.

And they just get cheaper and cheaper...ever take a close look at the newest fixtures sold at the box store?

Yep. Some are even plastic! Although shoplights in the 70's were plastic too. He has a NOS 70's plastic F40 two lamp shoplite in his basement still in the box. It came with two phillips lamps. I plugged it in and it works! I forget the brand though....

It's amazing how flimsy new fluorescents are these days, this troffer I installed was weaker than a lot of cardboard, you could completely ruin the fixture by bending it by hand.

That's why I buy my fixtures from Restore now...or pay extra for the "commercial" ones which aren't as cheap feeling as the box store ones.

do i see an Adavance ballast in its box in the corner of this pic?

Yeah an 150w and a 70w HPS tritap.

Mine!

I might be getting a vintage F40T12 shoplight soon that has a THICK metal reflector from a house a friend used to live in. The new owners are going to tear it down, but I've made arrangements to get said fixture when the current tenants move out, but before it is demolished. It has GE Watt-Miser lamps in it (post-1995, pre-2003 ones) along with three others. I'm already excited and I've decided on two places where I might hang it.

Cool! This one is still in it's current position, lighting my workbench. The ballast inside is huge too, it's the same length as a HPF F40 ballast but the case is a bit taller.

Cool. I'm hoping to get some fluorescent oldies too but for now they'll stay where they are. My great-aunt mentioned i can keep a few fluorescent light in her tool shed as storage until i get my own place in a few years but as of now all the lights I'm scheduled to get are still up and working (well I'll be relamping three of them within the next two months. ) so they thechnically are in storage I guess.

She mentioned having fluorescent lights in the tool shed that she has no use for sinnce the feed from the garage to the tool shed (it was actually a length of outdoor-rated duplex wire painted black by my great-grandpa when my great-grandparents owned the house) broke in hurricane Irene and she saw no use in getting it fixed. She called a handy-man to remove the rest of the wire between the garage and the tool shed, though the feed could be restored if someone wanted it to be since the wire was cut and capped in a JB on the garage side and the same for the tool shed end. She wasn't specific with what kind of fluorescent lights were in the tool shed but the next time i'm over, i'll definetly check it out.

Cool, Mike! I wonder if the lights in the tool shed are preheaters! Imagine if they were T17 lights!

funny i was thinking the same thing just didn't comment! thatd be a heck of A FIND IF SO!

and neat looking F20 fixture!

I didn't even think of T17s!!! I have a very vague memory of seeing two lamp F40T12 lights with a similar style as above. I could be wrong though. I had a dream that there were continuous rows of F40T12 wrap lights but i highly doubt that's the case. IIRC, the walls and ceiling are drywalled and possibly insulated. I wonder if my great-grandpa has any replacement light parts in the tool shed. Possibly a few starter, a couple lamps and maybe even a ballast or fixture?! If there are T17 fixtures in the tool shed i think I'd have a heart attack! I'll be happy with whatever used to light that shed since it's at least 20 years old (my great-grandpa dies about 13 years ago and suffered from alzheimer's for quite a few years before that. My grandma said he'd all of a sudden get very angry and start yelling like he was in an argument with someone even though no one was in the room. If you tried to talk to him it'd be like he didn't know you were there. He'd just stare in anger at "someone" and a few minutes later he snapped out of it. Anyways, point is that any fixtures in the house are at least 20 years old. Same for fluorescent lamps and starters too. I'm surprised I've onyl changed one lamp in that whole time. The garage lights still have 1970s 35W wattmiser lamps with the red etches!

Nice fixture!