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Restore Find - Drop dish fluorescent
I didn't buy it but thought it'd be interesting to share this one. A 2x2 recessed drop dish troffer showed up at Restore recently, seems like it was originally mounted in a plaster or drywall ceiling. Anyway it's looks to be quite old, perhaps early to mid 60s from the cloth wiring on parts of the ballast. Also interesting is the HPF 4 lamp F20T12 trigger start ballast. I guess this light is old enough to predate the use of 2 F40BT12s (U bent F40s) in these type of fixtures, I think those only started to become popular in the 70s. I prefer the 2x2 lights with 2' lamps though. 

Interestingly all the newer 2x2 fixtures are 2 or 3 lamp 2' T8/T5 instead of using F32BT8s. I guess 2' lamps won out partially due to how fragile the U bent T8s are and the slight energy saving from using 2-3 lamps. 
Keywords: Indoor_Fixtures

Restore Find - Drop dish fluorescent

I didn't buy it but thought it'd be interesting to share this one. A 2x2 recessed drop dish troffer showed up at Restore recently, seems like it was originally mounted in a plaster or drywall ceiling. Anyway it's looks to be quite old, perhaps early to mid 60s from the cloth wiring on parts of the ballast. Also interesting is the HPF 4 lamp F20T12 trigger start ballast. I guess this light is old enough to predate the use of 2 F40BT12s (U bent F40s) in these type of fixtures, I think those only started to become popular in the 70s. I prefer the 2x2 lights with 2' lamps though.

Interestingly all the newer 2x2 fixtures are 2 or 3 lamp 2' T8/T5 instead of using F32BT8s. I guess 2' lamps won out partially due to how fragile the U bent T8s are and the slight energy saving from using 2-3 lamps.

COL_20170408_190548.jpg 20170402_154744.jpg 20170402_154744.jpg P6240062.JPG 20170402_154744.jpg
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Filename:20170402_154744.jpg
Album name:joe_347V / Misc. Lighting Pics
Keywords:Indoor_Fixtures
Filesize:439 KiB
Date added:Apr 05, 2017
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URL:http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=21737
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Comment 1 to 11 of 11
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streetlight98   [Apr 05, 2017 at 11:23 AM]
Cool fixture! I probably wouldn't have spent $25 on it either though. I like these troffers with side-mounted ballasts. With center-mounted ballasts you can't fit two HPF F20T12 ballasts end-to-end very easily in the channel. With side mounted though you can fit one at each end of the fixture.
joe_347V   [Apr 09, 2017 at 12:12 AM]
Yeah it was a pretty neat fixture but $25 was too much for it. The ballast cover was also missing but I guess a replacement could be easily made. Ahh, I see what you mean, I liked centre ballast channels since the fixture looks more symmetrical when opened up but I guess the side channels have more room.
streetlight98   [Apr 09, 2017 at 03:29 AM]
If the fixture has two ballast covers (one on each side) then the fixture would be symmetrical. I don't mind the center ballast channel on 2 or 4-lamp troffers but on 3-lamp ones it looks weird since the channel is off-centered. Fortunately most professional installations have the troffers oriented the same way so the channel covers are all offset in the same direction. Nothing irratates me more than the ballast channels offset randomly. It also dives me crazy when those 2x2 u-bend troffers are oriented in different directions. I like all the lamps facing the same direction in a room lol.
ZarlogH46   [Apr 09, 2017 at 12:41 PM]
I saw an identical light to this at Restore yesterday except it had some F32T8 lamps in. it. They wanted almost $100 for it and so I passed. Rolling Eyes
streetlight98   [Apr 09, 2017 at 08:02 PM]
was it 4x4 or 1x4? Or 2x4? This one is 2x2. I have one that's 1x2, kinda rare. got the drop dish lens and fake wood paneling sides. uses two F20T12s.
joe_347V   [Apr 09, 2017 at 10:56 PM]
Yeah if this was a 1x2 surface mount version I probably would have grabbed it. Yeah offset ballast covers in a row of 3 lamp troffers would bug me too. When I installed the ones in my basement, I made sure to align all the ballast covers lol. I know of a store that had the troffers randomly oriented and with two different brands too. Rolling Eyes
ZarlogH46   [Apr 09, 2017 at 11:55 PM]
It was 2x2 just like this one. I am not sure what is up at my local restore lately, some stuff there is insanely overpriced ($30 for a 400w HPS, some old dirty wallpacks for $45 each, etc.)
don   [Apr 10, 2017 at 01:22 AM]
Wha...a 4-lamp F20T12 HPF ballast? If I knew it worked, I'd buy the thing just for the ballast, lol Never seen one of those.
streetlight98   [Apr 10, 2017 at 02:11 AM]
How did they cram F32T8 lamps into a 2X2 fixture? Or did you mean the FB32T8s? (u-bend tubes?)

Oh wow I didn't even notice the ballast was 4-lamp. I assumed there were two 2-lamp ballasts, one at each side.
ZarlogH46   [Apr 10, 2017 at 02:14 AM]
Oh, it was just a fixture that used U-bend lamps.
joe_347V   [Apr 12, 2017 at 05:51 AM]
I suppose the HPF 4x F20T12 ballast is a fairly rare. Maybe I should grab it if the Restore has a sale and it's still sitting there. A couple of years ago, the Restore had a policy where you can haggle if it's been sitting there for too long but they stopped allowing that now.

Comment 1 to 11 of 11
Page: 1