So I had a friend who is also somewhat electrically inclined (Same one with the '71 deuce and a half I may end up with) laughing SO hard when I was describing all the electrical code violations I described here to him. (20 amp main for the whole house, etc.). That and the three-way switches that aren't in a couple places in my house. I think I even used the phrase, "The circuits are laid out kinda screwy" LOL.
He wants to stop by the house sometime and see just how many fluorescents are in use...it'll be neat to have a fellow kinda-enthisiast see all the lighting stuff I have.
And I know everyone will hate me for this, but I'm considering converting all my magnetic F40/RS lights to electronic T8 since those actually seem fairly immune to flicker on generator power with iffy cycles or whatever. (The ~10Hz flicker in my house is quite noticeable and rather annoying). I'd probably use daylight, 6500K lamps. (Probably Sylvania Octrons, my dad has some in use and I like their color and they seem to have held up well since 2013). For the lights I have that are already T8 I'd keep the existing 3500K lamps in until they die though.
And don't worry, I won't ever be tossing any old F40/RS ballasts I take out. They're all just flickery on my power or are cranky about starting (Ungrounded, etc) or both. Nothing actually wrong with them, and I'll keep collecting more as I find them.
And the slimlines...although I love magnetic slimlines, same problem with those. Not sure what I'll do about those, maybe electronic T12 ballasts? Mike, I know you service and relamp your grandfather's slimlines at his auto shop, do you have any experience with the electronic slimline T12 ballasts thus? My godfather has one I found for him at ReStore, which replaced a dead magnetic one, and I haven't seen it working in person yet, but he tells me the 60w lamps don't even striate. Which sounds like a good thing in my case...perhaps with those ballasts and 75w lamps they'll work OK in the unheated shop. (A crappy '89 Advance with a bad cap and 60w lamps was like a strobe light out there last winter, it maybe warmed up fully on a few really hot summer days...the whole time I had it installed out there!
The single-lamp F20T12/TS strips seem fairly immune to the "flicker" so I'll leave those magnetic, and even preheat choke F15T8 undercabinet lights don't seem too awful. However, a 2-lamp F20/TS LPF strip I have is also really awful flicker-wise, so it'll probably get an electronic ballast too and 6500K F17T8 lamps.
Funny thing is, before having a generator with cycles issues I was actually contemplating installing the much-hated LED "tubes" in my kitchen lights with bad ballasts so I could just bypass them. Now I don't think so! (They'd be so horrible to work under in there).
If nothing else, this would get rid of ballasts in use that are: crappy period, cranky about starting, or flickery. But I won't toss any of them LOL. Especially full power HPF F40/RS and HPF slimline ballasts!
And I may have a Deuce acquisition update soon. Wish me luck!