Gallery of Lights
The Site => General discussion => Topic started by: GEsoftwhite100watts on September 22, 2012, 11:13:24 PM
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So you know how everyone on here thinks CFLs are a fire hazard...they're not the only ones!
So today I was helping clean out a house that a friend is moving into and I discovered THREE shoplights that used to be in the walk-out basement that had friend ballasts! They weren't fried last week! Now they are all friend. Looking inside the trashed fixtures sitting outside, I saw the ballasts had exposed coils (or had plastic casings) and were totally charred. So much that the outside of the metal fixtures were darkened from the heat! They appeared to be wired up like a regular NPF rapid start ballast, but I suspect they were some kind of capacitive ballast like those weird LOA ones. Anyway, I got five free pre-EcoLux 34w GE Watt-Miser lamps (pre-2003, post-1995 as they had the encircled E logo but no mercury symbol.) There was a sixth one but it broke. Maybe the 34w lamps fried the ballasts. The lamps look almost new, and of the three out of five I've tested, they work. Normally I wouldn't have taken them but they were free, sort of vintage now, and would have been thrown out otherwise...
Did the LOA shoplights ever go up in smoke?
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Do you know the brand of the fixture? Did you get any pictures of the ballast? The old LOA style had a choke in each end of the fixture, and the ignitor/capacitor for each lamp in a small box that was inline with the wiring in centre channel. Pacific Ballast and a few other companies made a ballast that was essentially the same, except all components were enclosed in a standard-looking metal ballast case. But you could tell that the wiring was different than a rapid-start ballast, and each lamp operates independently. I have one of each style in use (not regularly) at my house and they work fine with F40 or F25T12 lamps....but I'd never use F34's in them.
I don't like F34 lamps. I've played around with them a number of times in different fixtures and always end up getting rid of them. They demand a higher operating current, are also more difficult to ignite and will never fully run-up in cold temperatures due to the krypton fill, and I think all of this is hard on ballasts. But the cheap LOA choke-cap-ignitor ballasts will be operating in starting-mode (ignitor pulsing continuously) for longer periods with F34 lamps, especially in a cold basement - plus the high operating current - I'm not surprised the ballasts failed catastrophically. They're not very robust to begin with.
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Thanks Alain,
Nope these were in the center of the fixture (like a regular ballast would be) but appeared to have exposed coils and these certainly were not the LOA ones made of plastic. These looked (from the outside) like a regular shoplight. No, I didn't get pics but maybe I can...
PS...I might be getting a vintage shoplight soon (thick metal reflector, POSSIBLY HPF ballast, etc.) It has 34w lamps in it (thankfully it is not a preheater; I searched for starters)! and a few more GE 34w Watt-Miser lamps. I guess I'm finding lots of 34w lamps lately LOL.
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Cool that you're getting a vintage shop light! Yeah good thing it's not preheat. 34W lamps would no doubt make those preheat ballasts run pretty hot. 34W lamps are just crap IMO. The old red etched GE 35W wattmisers were great. My great-aunt has a two lamp strip and a one lamp strip in the garage and all but one of the lamps are original to the fixtures (which are from the 70s-80s)
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@Alain, I saw the fixtures again yesterday. The ballasts appeared to be like a preheat choke or a HX-NPF MV ballast in that they had an exposed iron core and copper wire coils. There was a sticker on one of the fixtures that said, "Do not use "energy efficient" lamps in this fixture of premature failure may result. Wonder what kind of EOL show the ballasts put off...
@Mike, Yeah, I'm pretty excited! I bet that thing will be HEAVY and a pain to get home! I'd love to eventually restore it, and if I ever stumble upon the right hear, convert it to preheat if the old (probably.8A full power HPF) ballast dies. I suggested they not leave it on when not needed in the interim before I get it so it doesn't fry the (probably vintage) ballast!
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When you repaint it, lightly sand the whole fixture, sandign heavier where there is rust or chipped paint. (Using primer is up to you. I don't when painting fixtures for indoor use like fluorescent lights. For streetlights and other outdoor lights primer is a must IMO. If you do use primer, coat the whole thing lightly and evenly, let it dry, then EXTREMELY lightly sand any rough spots on the primer.) I sudgest using Rust-Oleum Gloss White Enamel paint but any version of gloss white enamel paint would work. Start off with a light dusting of paint on the surface about a foot from the light. A few minutes later, add a second coat a little closer to the light, covering the whole surface evenly. Then, apply a third thicker coat over the whole light a few minutes afterwards. If you're painting the inside and outside of a 4ft light, you'll probably need one can of primer (if you deem it necessary) and two cans of paint. I used two cans to paint my 4ft shop light. Good luck! :D
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Thanks, I probably won't be restoring it for awhile though...
I probably won't be getting it until at least some time next month though...but I'll keep ya guys posted...
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Those fixtures you described sound VERY familiar! VERY! Those are late 80s early 90s fixtures workshop fixtures I remember seeing them. They had really LOUD ballasts too from what I remember they really vibrated! They are rapid start ballasts but with exposed ballasts covered in a thin plastic "paper"... Did they have the same wiring style you see on rapid start?
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Yup sounds like those. Thanks!
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And let's not forget the 2+ cases of (albeit warm white) GE MainLighters I scored today! They will go great with the vintage shoplight I'm getting. Haven't picked them up yet though. I think I'll keep one pair unused and just use up the rest of them, since I have like fifty of them assuming all goes well.
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sweet! Post pics when you get em! :D
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Got one of them yesterday (I'll post a pic when I get a chance; it needs dating). Today I got a 2' single-lamp F20T12 striplight with a Universal trigger start ballasts that will run an: F20T12, F15T12, F14T12, or F15T8. It hums slightly, and instant starts the pre-ALTO warm white Philips lamp, whose date code I believe decodes to August 1997. (7H). It could be July 2008 but I doubt that since it's full-mercury and still has the "Shield" logo (wasn't that ditched in 2006?)
I guess I need to start liking Warm White...
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what's the date code on the ballast?
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Haven't looked, but i'm guessing old-ish...the ballast said it was for a "preheat start lamp". I currently have it in use and don't have the time to remove the ballast and check...label is in good shape but looks old-ish nonetheless...what about yours? I have no idea what brand the fixture is...
I might bring home more MainLighters tomorrow...
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The original ballast to my closet light is dated A03 which is January 2003 around the time when my house was built.
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I know those shoplights they are made by elelectripak and yeah ballasts were exposed and very skimpy in terms of how it was made...they are series rapid start lamps lasted quite a long time in them (neighbor had quite a few) one was with 34W Phillips econ-o-watt Altos and after half hour the thermal protecttion would always trip until i swapped it for some F40TT12 lamps. .later in few years i found 2 of them in the trash and played with them..they drive lamps like a .63A ballast roughly and even 1 34W and 40w will overheat it after few hours. . They would almost get to the point of overheating running good F40s
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Well I since heard they worked intermittently actually, and that explains why!
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Here's a mysterious one for you guys: Anyone have any idea how replacing tubes in a florescent light can cause a direct short and fry the compressor in a chest freezer?
That happened at a friend's house. They recently moved into a house that had been unoccupied previously for like 13 years, so I guess the wiring could be suspect after sitting that long.
Anyway in their pantry there is a florescent light (just a cheapo residential-grade shoplight attached directly to the ceiling and hardwired). Anyway the fixture had a pair of near-EOL/rectifying GE "Plant&Aquarium" tubes. I gave my friends a pair of warm white GE Mainlighters to replace them. Anyway, now if you go in there and turn on the light switch, (the house is off the grid) you can hear the generator rev up like there's a huge load. It happened to me, too. Of course I turned it off immediately. Anyway apparently it killed a chest freezer.
One other thing: this is 120v, no 240v involved anywhere in the system (so I think we can eliminate a bad neutral unless that happens with 120v). And nothing else in the house seems to have blown up.
Any ideas you guys?
I did once have a shoplight identical to this one (which was sitting for years in a vacant house first as well) that had an Advance "Benchlite" LPF ballast fail in such a way that after replamping the light (had been in use for awhile already) with Sylvania Cool White Plus lamps it quit working after a few days. It would light the cathodes, but touching/wiggling tubes didn't make a difference or replacing tubes (although I do believe it was ungrounded). Finally it would just buzz and draw lots of power like there was a short somewhere in the ballast. Since this light is identical it might have the same ballast; are those known to fail spectacularly?
I have another fixture in use at my house (probably with a Benchlite ballast), and now I'm wondering if I should discontinue it until I find a different ballast....
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Hmm. Ask your friends if you can take a better look at the fixture and replace the ballast. Did the lamps survive?
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I don't know if they survived or not.
I can't replace the ballast as I don't have a spare one...but maybe I'll be around when we finally get around to fixing it/further investigating what went wrong...AKA the florescent light fixture coming down off the ceiling and some junction boxes opened...
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How long did the fixture run? Being on a generator it is possible a bad ballast had drawn a large current (being bad) which on such a small power source induced a voltage drop. Undervoltage can be really bad for motors, including freezer compressors! Compressors running with abnormally low voltage draw more current and fail if it lasts too long.
Honestly I don't see any other explanation on how a light fixture can damage a completely unrelated appliance...
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I think it was only flicked on for a second, although I suppose it's possible...or maybe just a coincidence that they were both old?
Could the pins on one of the tubes have been loose and arced/touched causing a short?
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no i think only instant start ballasts with bi-pin lamps will arc. that's why slimline lamps are single pin, to eliminate arcing (well, and to ease installation too).
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Yep I'd hate trying to twist in a lamp from 8 feet away...
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Update: Freezer turned out to be fine, was just the ballast shorting out and burning thus that (sniff, sniff) burning wiring/ electrical fire smell.