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"Would You Like to Try Our New Smoked Ballast Platter?"
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Look at this! Like WTF?! My brother left the lights on over night and THIS is what happens?! Look at all that TAR! and PCBs too!!! This thing musts got friggin' HOT becuase the paint on the fixture to the right of the ballast is all bubbled like it was scorched. I saved the two lamp sockets on the opposite end, the starters (havent tested them yet), the wingnuts holding the reflector, and the lamps.
When I tried the two lamps on my Cooper turret fixture they didn't do anything so I thought they were dead but magically after 10 seconds or so they came right on and every time after they came on too. The lamps got about three years worth of blackening on them though from this little event though!
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BTW you never replied to the email I sent regarding you getting your latest toy.
@ Vince; yep i found that interesting too! I figured "Oh! Industrial means tougher!" Did 1950s ballasts have thermal protection to begin with back then? It's a nice fixture but i really don't want to mess with it any more than i have to. I took out the two sockets on the opposite end and chopped off the power cord from the outside. I saved the wingnuts from the reflector too. That's all I saved from this. Well the lamps and starters too. The lamps work but i haven't tested the starters. I don't see why they wouldn't work though since they sit idle except at startup. Very scarey though! It's definetly scarred my enthusiasm for vintage fluorescents a little bit. I'll have to buy some fuses online. I was going to get fuses before but couldn't find them locally.
What are good fuses for 0.73A-0.8A ballasts? What ballasts should I fuse? Just non-class P? Any HPF ballast? Every fluorescent ballast I own?
As for fuses, I stuck a 1A fuse in my CGE turret which draws 0.85A. It should also work for the lower amp rated F40 ballasts too.
Anyway I usually fuse fixtures in these scenarios: ballast is older than 25-30 years, fixture is often left running unattended, non-class P, PCB ballast, ballast draws excess current (compared to the label), or if the ballast has a tendency to run hot.
You'll need a Kill a Watt meter or a AC ammeter for the second last test, and a IR temp probe for the last one but I just feel how hot it runs.
BTW I had a dream last night in which I was going through some old photos of a friend's cabin (In real life there's pics there of when it was a total dump) and visible was a Tulamp preheater similar to this...one of the lamps looked spent though. I woke up wishing it existed in real life (Although when the place was remodeled in reality it likely would have been tossed!
Wow, though...that's hot!
"I'd like to try the smoked ballast platter with PCB sauce, can I get some fries with that please?"