|
|
IPP 4' T12 Ballast (2004)
|
In a 2004 Lithonia shoplight from a friend's basement. It's principle of operation is interesting and unusual: it starts lamps virtually instantly, calls itself a "rapid start ballast" but is also sort of a preheat ballast. Same thing as the Lights of America 4' capactive-choke ballasted shoplights, only in a real F-can ballast case.
These do terribly in cold, especially with 34 watt "energy saver" lamps. And the "ignitor" unit likes to fail (On this particular ballast, only one side actually works; the other does absolutely nothing.
Lamps also don't last too long from what I'm told; the "crest factor" is rather high and tends to eat lamps quickly (Months instead of years/decades). These were made right at the end of new magnetic T12 fixtures being produced; when things got real cheap and junky real fast.
Although interesting and T12, I'd still take one of my 1970s-vintage shoplights with a wide, thick metal reflector and full-power high-power-factor magnetic rapid start ballast any day week over one of these.
The differing line current values for 25w "shoplite" lamps vs. standard 40w lamps makes me believe there IS indeed a slight electrical difference between the two, though to a much lesser extent than 40w vs. 34w.
|
|
Login
I had a single lamp Cooper Metalux F40 strip I bought from Lowe's a few years ago. It was pretty well-built and had tall rotary-lock Leviton sockets with the white rotary piece (as opposed to black or green). The ballast was a GE electronic T12. I gave the fixture to my grandpa in 2012 IIRC. It's mounted over the sink in the basement so my grandma can see when she cleans the litter boxes. It's wired to a cord though, not hardwired, and doesn't have a switch on it so it has to be plugged in and unplugged whenever it's being turned on/off. Kind of a pain but they're used to it now, I guess. I offered to hardwire it now and they said it's fine. It's hardmounted on the side of a ceiling joist. Wouldn't fit under the joists in a standard position so we mounted it sideways on the side of the joist over the sink. Works fine.