The F40T17s are the same size physically as the F90s? But electrically are similar to the F48T12/HO? Oh wow, I learn something new every day I guess LOL.
Mike, would you settle for a 4' wrap if needed, though?
Whoops, that's right, they're trigger start! DUH!
Weird! Well for me I couldn't get a duplex receptacle to fit right...strange. I need to try again.
Yeah, I hope it does NOT require much, if any, work or rewiring or modifications. I'll probably bring a 400w Sylvania HPS lamp I already have to test, and if not then I guess I'd have to go to ReStore to look for a MV (I wouldn't want to overpower the Westy Lifeguard lamp in an area light there).
Yeah, I'll keep you posted. For me, if the factory HPS gear doesn't work I'd probably just disconnect the ballast and wire the socket straight to the mains and use a large CFL or to a remote 175w MV ballast. But I'd leave the original gear intact in hopes I could pass it on to you someday. (See? There's incentive to make it to the West Coast).
And yeeeeah....the PC thing. I suppose I could use the been-dayburning-for-years-but-turned-off-with-a-missing-window one off the area light there but I'm afraid it might just crumble as soon as it was touched...so here again, ReStore! Or Home Depot.
Although if I could actually GET a working ignitor for fairly cheap I'd consider...but honestly getting that thing working is very low on the monetary priority list LOL. I'm more concerned with college, preferably off-campus housing, and hopefully owning (and thus insuring) a vehicle. (Any update on your car Mike? Told any other friends yet? I told one about my "potential project vehicle" and got some laugher to say the least).
OK, you might find this somewhat interesting: So I took the gutted remains of a 4' vaprotight.
http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2350&pos=17&pid=86932.
and stuck in a February 1989 Advance slimline ballast with a weak capacitor that was very tempermental with the intended lamps, albeit 60w energy-saver ones.
http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-91623 It's in testing right now and it's getting up there temp wise but I can still touch it so far. Plus this light lacks a channel cover anyway, and will for the foreseeable future so the ballast operates in free air anyway.
Wiring it up was a little interesting. First of all, I'm not all that familiar with the slimline wiring diagram (I could do 2XF40/RS or a single preheat lamp in my sleep though). And then since slimlines have no line-side hot/neutral leads on the actual ballast I got myself a little puzzled trying to make lampholders intended for bipin preheat or rapid start lamps work on instant-start with line wires going INTO the lampholders. I ended up considering myself lucky I still had a broken slimline plunger/cutout socket around
http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2353&pos=0&pid=91691 so I could see its internals and what side to put the wires on. In hindsight this would work just fine with shunted IS-only sockets, which I may replace these with.
One thing I discovered is: if I remove the lamp on the blue-wire side the red-wire lamp stays at FULL brightness. And if I remove the red-wire amp the blue-wire one dim-glows. Weird! I'm going to have to post this on LG for sure.
I think it is actually one of my cleanest fixture insides wiring jobs to date, I even added a screw for the ground and tied the old ShopVac cord in a knot inside as a makeshift strain relief.
Nonetheless, I still took it outside for the initial testing! And I got a video which I'll try to put on YouTube and I'll link to when/if I do.
Funny thing was, on a bright, sunny day, when testing with a pair of the 2011 Sylvanias with the mercury issue it's hard to tell the fixture is even on but I could hear that slimline ballast from 20 feet away easily!
So I was just thinking...so there was a M-400A, M-400A1, M-400A2, (and A3?), in that chronological order right? For whatever it's worth Deuces and other similar ex-military trucks (5-ton version of the Deuce, etc) all have model numbers that start with M- and end with -A-number. So they could sound somewhat like GE cobraheads and vice versa. That being said, I know about both to differentiate a M-250A from a M35A2 or M-400A1 from a M923A2 LOL. Nonetheless, I find it to be an amusing coincidence.
Of course, my getting down there to work on the M-400A isn't set in stone yet but I'd like to make it down there for a week this winter. I would go this summer but I'm going to be pretty busy starting (hopefully) next week. I think this winter break will be busy between visiting my godparents and trying to get the M-400A going (and hopefully a 1978 JVC stereo tuner/whole system) and getting my other junk out of their house I've had sitting there for a year and a half now since moving out of the house in Atascadero when my mom passed away, and hopefully gaining some driving experience (Can you document driving time in one state with a learning permit from another state? I hope so). Also in the same month or so I hope to visit some friends here in Alaska, who also have a Deuce, which I hope to learn more about (Not to own, but since I may be getting my own in a year). I've actually ridden in that truck but thought nothing of it (Granted, it was two and a half years before I got interested in them).
Then, in June 2016 I may be getting my own. MAY being the key word right now. I think if nothing else it's a very unique situation: I'm just now starting the process of learning to drive, (a normal vehicle; I've driven all sorts of other equipment), and about the time I'm getting licensed ending up with a Deuce given to me LOL. Oh well, it's not the first unusual thing I've done that turned out successfully, despite appearing on the outside to be rather strange.
So my driving learning process might go like:
-Get the learner's permit in a couple weeks (IF I can find all the right identification paperwork I need and my parent isn't available to assist me right now)
-Driving around a town of 8,000 people with no freeways, etc. and a highest speed limit of 45MPH, probably in a stick-shift as well. (summer 2015)
-Driving in a "real" place, on everything, including 65MPH freeway, probably in a Geo or a Pontiac minivan. (Winter 2015/2016). (Might even do some basic learning in the very same church parking lot my mom was originally going to teach me in).
-Possibly driving in what I call "The bad-driver capital of Alaska", AKA on Prince of Wales Island. (Lots of twisty-turny rural road, much of it still unpaved (but getting less and less thankfully) with nobody else to see LOL. (Spring 2016)
-And possibly having the wonderful (Maybe seriously, maybe sarcastically) experience of driving from Port Townsend, WA to Sitka, AK (Thankfully NOT through Canada, driving to the ferry in Bellingham I hope) in a 2.5 ton 6X6 stick-shift; AKA a Deuce. I haven't looked at the road maps but knowing my luck it wouldn't surprise me if I find myself having to navigate downtown Seattle at rush hour as well LOL. Current owner/friend is selling his place down there and bringing up stuff from there so hopefully we can combine efforts and make the trip together; should be quite an experience LOL. But that's the fun part, the adventure!
-And finally, driving on Fairbanks freeways, sometimes at -40F.
Mike, just curious, where did you FIRST learn to drive? Like I said I was GOING to learn in the church parking lot but that didn't happen.