Gallery of Lights
The Site => General discussion => Topic started by: GEsoftwhite100watts on September 29, 2012, 08:15:09 PM
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I have a 15w preheat undercabinent light that currently has an On Guard FS-2 starter and Thorn (came from an old aquarium hood I got at the same time as this fixture that I gutted) 15w T8 "Tropical Daylight" lamp.
Now, when gutting the aquarium hood I accidentally broke the starter in that light so I re-used the starter in the undercabinent light after it's Sylvania Design 50 had rectified it's last.
Now, it was doing that "misfire" thing (I read somewhere on here or LG that it's common when certain lamps, ballasts, and starters don't like each other) where it would (1) take forever to start (sometimes several minutes), (2) start and rectify) then (3) ramp up to full brightness/conduct properly in such a way that it was literally like "preheat-rapid start". Then as the lamp aged more it would more often start rectifying, then drop out and start again, this time at full brightness.
Now it intermittently lights (rectifying like CRAZY) or does nothing. I installed that lamp in July of this year (2012) and now it's the end of September. EOL already maybe? I have no idea how many hours it did in the aquarium hood it came from originally (which now no longer exists)
It's been used as an always-on light in my room (but off at night) but it can be relieved by the F20T12 single-lamp trigger start striplight with a Philips pre-ALTO warm white tube. I can get a new lamp/starter later this week...
Any ideas?
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Hmm. I'd use a new lamp and a new starter. Also, you can try reversing the way the lamp is inserted into the fixture (flip it so if the etch end is on the left, it's now on the right). I did that to the lamp in my closet light and it no longer rectifies. Your best bet is a new lamp and starter though.
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I plan to get that and a cool white or daylight lamp for my F20T12 trigger start striplight I got today...which is lit as I type...
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I hate those "misfires." My LOA F15T8's seem to be the ones that do it the most, though I have one F40T12 single lamp fixture that likes to do it too.
A new lamp will cure it, at least temporarily, and sometimes a different starter helps. I haven't tried the switching end-to-end as I don't know how that could help on an AC fixture (it does help on battery powered T5 lanterns though).
There seems to be an interesting relationship between ballast, lamp & starter. If any one component is marginal, you can get the "misfires" (rectification and then a restart). But finding out which component is the issue seems to be trial and error. I don't want to waste a component if it will work fine in another fixture.
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I totally agree. The misfire thing seems to be magnified with newer starters that claim to start the lamp in "one second of less". It's just too soon. I used soem GE/HN starters along with Sylvania F40T12 cool white plus lamps to fix up some tulamp preheaters and half the lamps instant start and the other half take up to a minute to sucessfully start becuase the starter is working the lamp too quickly. You can see it come on dimly, shut off, come on dim again, shut off. This repeats until the lamp and starter finally work together and the lamp starts. I have a feeling that'll kill the lamps quicker than the ones that really do instant start.
I noticed with F40's, when you flip the switch off then on again, the starter doesn't need to do anything unlike with F20s where they have a delay due to the starter restarting the lamp. F20's are also much more "blink-happy" than F40s for some reason. F90T17s aren't blink happy at all. After about five seconds after flipping the switch, the lamps glow at the ends than the lamp gradually gets brighter down the tube until the lit ends meet and then the lamp flashes to full brightness. Not at all blink-happy but still awesome to watch!
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I've only been around preheat florescents 22w and under so I have no idea...but that sounds interesting nonetheless!
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seen a few odd preheat EOL's on LG recently that had mercury migrated lamps because of weak starters :o
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This light did that a lot with it's previous lamp, a Sylvania Design 50 F15T8, especially on modified sine wave inverter electricity...