Hmm, I see the three Robertson F13 ballasts have backwards labels. Also that F8T5 ballast looks similar to the one in my Lampi undercabinet fixture. Any idea when were they made and who made these fixtures?

There are actually four robertson ballasts; three preheat and one RS. The 30W undercabinet light has an Advance ballast dated to 1993. The little choke dates to May 1999, which I'd guess the Robertsons to be the same. The fixtures were made by Day-O-Lite which is based right here in RI! right next door to me in Warwick, RI.

Interesting, over here most fixtures are made by either Lithonia and Cooper or more local companies such as Visioneering in Toronto (quite common apparently, I have a bunch of lights from them), CFI in Cornwall, Thomas Lighting in Markham, and Peerless in Montreal.

Interesting! Do you have a pic of the advance ballast?

no, but I can take one. Interestingly, it lists 25w, 30, 34, and 40W T12s but not 30W T12s, which it wired for.

Odd, I have a similar ballast from Universal and that lists 30w lamps and 40w lamps. Most F40 ballasts should be able to run 30w lamps anyways in fact most Canadian RS F40 ballasts were listed to run 30w lamps too.

Looks like you had one wired up for testing?
What are your plans for the F30 fixture?

yep i had tested all of them and everything works.

i guess i didn't tell you guys... i mounted the F30 in the laundry room on the wall next to the door. I guess I'll grab a pic later this afternoon.

So with that and the preheater in there it must be nice and bright!

eh not really lol. The area where the F30 is mounted is nice and bright but the corner where my lights are is the same. the RS always starts like a programmed start electronic ballast it waits a second and flashes on with no blink happiness.

Hmm, I thought the LPF ballasts had better startup flicker or at least mine does. You could always try your Magnetek ballast if it has full length leads.

Maybe with the F40t12s they blink more. My HPF ballasts seem to blink more. Do HBF ballasts flicker or blink more or less at startup than NBF or LBF ballasts?

Also, do you mean the Universal ballast? becuase i don't own any magnetek ballasts. anyways, the universal ballast's leads are just long enough to wire it to a F20T12 lamp. I had to tape the sockets to the lamp when i tried the ballast with an F20 lamp because the wires were too taut.

Universal/magnetek/triad (now called universal lighting technologies) are all the same company

have they always been or were the companies merged like with cooper merging Westinghouse, McGraw-Edison, etc?

i have no idea, but ive seen ballasts with two or more names on them such as Triad/Magnetek 4 lamp ballast from Kmart

hmm. interesting. the universal ballasts that i have are simply universal marked. that's a two lamp RS from '73 and a NPF single lamp from '83 (i think it's '83 lol)