Lamps > Vintage
HELP ON PREHEAT FLUORESCENT!!!
Jace the Gull:
What the starter does....
Before I say it, note one cathode is connected to the converted hot (from the ballast) and the other cathode is connected to the neutral...
Well see, when you flip the switch on...the starter CLOSES the circuit...making the electricity from ballast go through BOTH cathodes (filaments of the fluorescent lamp) from line, to one cathode, through starter then through 2nd cathode and out to neutral making the cathodes glow at start up...When it detects the gas ignited, then the starter disconnects. So when starter is disconnected during power on...the current goes through the tube instead of through the 2 cathodes and the starter. It only ignites when the gas is not carrying current.
At end of life, the cathodes (or one of them) loses emitter and somehow prevents the gas from glowing, so it kinda depletes the gas and it would attempt to turn on..but as soon as gas loses the current it turns off...making starter try to turn it back on...causing the strobing effect!
Makes sense eh?
Mike:
I know the sockets i'm using have 4 teminals. The two right ones have bits of wire stuck in them and I can't get them out. Could I use the two left ones?
joe_347V:
In most cases no since the hole on the right are for the right contact and vice versa for the left, so you have to have one wire in the right and one in the left or else you will bypass one of the cathodes from the preheat circuit.
If you have wires stuck inside the holder, some of them can be carefully opened up with a screwdriver so you can take the wires out.
Some others like Levitons are pretty hard to open up.
Mike:
--- Quote from: joe_347V on May 14, 2011, 05:23:48 PM ---In most cases no since the hole on the right are for the right contact and vice versa for the left, so you have to have one wire in the right and one in the left or else you will bypass one of the cathodes from the preheat circuit.
If you have wires stuck inside the holder, some of them can be carefully opened up with a screwdriver so you can take the wires out.
Some others like Levitons are pretty hard to open up.
--- End quote ---
Well, I brought the GE sockets back to HD and got an exchange. Also, Does anyone have a starter socket they don't need and/or a 15" metal housing that could be used for a fluorescent fixture? I said before that I was going to make a preheat fluorescent fixture. The only parts I need are the starter socket and a housing. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Michael.
joe_347V:
You might find the starter sockets at some smaller hardware places, for the housing I would just grab a used one from Restore or similar and just gut it. You could also buy a new striplight and gut it too.
Around a year or so ago you could still get new preheat strips at Lowe's so you could also look around too see if there's any left too.
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