LOL I might have kept it and tried to cut the tar with acetone and convert it to rapid start or electronic T8 until I found another preheat ballast but it's proably best it was disposed of...

In this case I probably would have dumped it too unless I have the PPE required to clean up the PCBs.

Yeah i had some clear gloves that i was pretty sure were rubber gloves but not positive. So i didn't want to risk coming in contact with the PCBs any longer than I had to. I heard that PCBs can remain in the ground and on objects for a very long time so if i were to wash it out i would risk contaminating the ground. I have a lot of younger cousins that roll around in the grass and stuff so it would be selfish trying to save the light and get that toxic crap all in the grass. I suppose I could have bought some sort of rubber sheet to cover the spot of grass i was working on but just the headache of being that close to a carcinogen and complete lack of support from my parents (which is totally understandable) I just found it to be not worth saving. But that scrapper saved me some time and money since i don't have to take it to the HazMat lol.

Yeah, you're gonna need a big enough basin to put the fixture in to catch any of the runoff and plus you also have to take all that runoff from the cleanup along with the rags you used to the hazmat. They actually still make shoplights similar to this one too. I guess if you paint it the grey/white colour scheme, retrofit a preheat ballast in, change the sockets to Leviton Y slots, you can have something that more or less resembles what you had lol.

Yeah if this is your only TuLamp preheat fixture you could take an industrial one and make it preheat I guess...although you'll be scoring more F40 preheaters in the future...FUSE THEM THOUGH!

This was the only two-lamp preheater that I was keeping. I have the one for Joe in my basement stashed with the other lights until I go up to Ontario and I'll be giving it to Joe. But yep, in the near future I will be getting four more two-lamp preheaters (one going to Aaron and the rest I'm keeping). I'll be putting one or two of them in service but not before fusing them. I eventually hope to get the three preheaters in my cousins' grandma's garage and hopefully the three in the basement too but IDK at this point. I will eventually replace the three Western Electric F40s in my grandma's garage and the T17 desk fixture. The three lamp F20T12 halfpiper I'm not really interested in, though I might replace the F20s with F17T8s to make it more efficient. Hopefully if the new owners one day see it has T8s they won't bother replacing it lol. It looks like a real PITA to replace which is why I'm not going to bother replacing it at this point.

Still grab if if they sell the house...
Is that Philips F40CW pictured above still in existence in your collection or somewhere in the McCann Family network of preheat fixtures?

Hey mike, if you wanna keep the preheater you can, I found a few recently and have no more space for lights, (bigger storage unit full, attic full and my grandma's house has a bunch in storage

@ Andy, The Philips F40 is still at their house. Not yet in my collection. I haven't gotten any more lights from them yet. the lamps are all daylight Sylvanias from the late 60s to 70s and this cool white philips and one GE lamp.

@ Aaron, if you're sure you don't want it... Do you want your money back? (i suppose that's a dumb question lol)

Is that GE a Mainlighter or something?

I don't know. It's got GE end caps, that's all I know. I don't know the color temperature, if it's full wattage or reduced wattage, if it's GE or if it's an Ace or True Value lamp. I assume it's a cool white 40W mainlighter but I have no evidence to support that so it's really just a random guess lol.

Oh yeah...I like rotating my etches so they can be seen...so maybe some lighting enthusiast who sees the abandoned fixtures decades from now sees the by-then-collectable lamps...

I like having the etch visible just so I can see it.

Me too!
That Philips lamp was EOL right? If it's done on preheat it likely won't do much except rectify on rapid start (Although I associate Philips' logo with flickering lamps; Vince has said he does too; they used to be really common). Preheat will sometimes squeeze a little more life out of a spent lamp that's done on rapid start...but grab this one anyway! You can toss it later if it gets in the way...I knowingly did just that to a March 1976 F40Cw Mainlighter since it was all done...it had even had the electronic F32t8 ballast treatment.

I'm not sure which lamps work and which ones don't. Not sure which starters work and which ones don't Same goes for starters. None of the lamps have a lot of blackening on them so I would imagine they all work.

If the starters had dealt with EOL lamps in the past they might be so weak they'll just continuously strobe without lighting successfully or only light a lamp in rectifying mode and not "properly". Granted, I've actually never seen a 4ft preheat fixture of any kind in person but that's my experience from FS-2 starters (14/15/20w). Are the starters really vintage? I'm just going to hazard a guess those daylight Sylvania Lifeline lamps are original to their installation in the basement, and as those began to fail they were replaced with things like the Philips F40CW and mystery GE. The starters could be from wherever they were before this house...although we're both guessing they must have been removed from wherever else in the 60s or 70s judging by the lamps, and you mentioned 60s-70s looking wirenuts and "black" NM wire (Which could be aluminum too; be careful with that stuff!). If that's the case then the starters were never replaced (At least not in 40 or 50 years) so they're likely pretty worn, especially in the case of the Philips lamp which likely replaced a failed Lifeline. It might have some blackening on the non-etch end but since it's the far end of the pic I can't tell for sure as opposed to seeing it in person at the time this picture was taken.
So the lamps might be fine, although I remember that GE looking pretty spent or at least well-used. It's likely a Mainlighter or maybe a Early Watt-Miser (Let's hope not for the sake of the ballast) judging by the blackening it had in that pic, or at least before 1992-ish when they redesigned the electrodes and went to the "big meatball" etch.

The starters might be weak. The fixture above that I no longer have had two Vicron starters, one of them was dead and one would work sometimes and not others so i tossed them both. The fixture going to Joe had a pair of Hubbell NeoStart starters which are from the 60s. At least one worked, maybe both did, I don't really remember to be honest. The fixtures I think came from all different places. Joe's definetly did since there's an empty KO on top on the opposite end of the fixture. Since all the fixtures are different I think they may have been used finds.

I agree with you about the Sylvania lifelines all being put in when these fixtures were first installed in the house (and the F20 fixture originally had the 60s inside etch GEs). The Lifelines have different date codes but I think they're all from the late 60s. This house was actually lifted off its foundation and moved when they built Interstate 295. It was moved down the road onto a new foundation. This was in the 60s I believe. So far, the starters between the two fixtures were different brands (the same within each fixture though) so that tells me that the fixtures all have their original starters. Often preheat fixtures had the starters included with them so a lot of people (especially modern home owners) don't know that the starters need to be replaced or that they even can be replaced. I think the fluorescents were added when the house was moved to its new foundation.

Yeah my aunt and uncle have had just about everything rewired in the house and the fluorescents are all disconnected. they're going to install new fluorescents from my aunt's uncles house (my aunt actually isn't by bio-aunt, she's my mom's step-sister but we consider each other blood-relatives). I don't know if they're T8 or T12 but if they're T12 and have electronic ballasts I might offer to convert them to T8.

Not sure how worn the lamps are but the Philips had litte wear IIRC. The lamps are very dirty though and definetly need a good wipe-down.

Yeah that makes sense if it was a totally new basement. BTW I got some GE F20T12/CWs today with the old etch, along with some other things!

Ah cool! Are you going to post pics?

Absolutely! I scored the woodshop lights today as well as some F20T12 fixtures! (And lamps for both!)