Fluorescent light question

[varmintpopper]

Fecmech
Go here : https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientif...and%20185%20nm).

Good Shooting

Lindy

[samari46]

I had some 4 lamp flourescent fixtures in the garage. Put them in when we moved into the house in 1996. In the winter had to wait until they finally made up their minds to light up. Off to Harbor Freight and bought 6 of the 4000 leumen LED fixtures. So now have plenty of bright white light and with the pull chains only turn on or off as needed. and if they go belly up, replacements are cheap. Frank

[JSnover]

Speaking about post #28 concerning the replacement of ballast with commercial ones. In my experience a ballast is a ballast. The commercial variety concerns mounting the ballast in the fixture. Mine slide into pre-made tabs on one end and are held in the fixture with nuts on the opposite end. So I think it is simply a mechanical difference in the mounting. The older magnetic ballast are bad about leaking the black compound which leaks out with heat over time. The newer solid state ballast are lighter and will usually slip right in where the older magnetic type was. Sometimes the solid state ones are shorter than the older magnetic type and may need to be fitted into the old position. If the newer solid state ballasts are compatible with LEDs it will state such on the wiring diagram of the ballast. However I think a program of eliminating the ballast and replacement with no ballast LEDs is the way to go if the fixtures in question are of good quality.

Thanks.
These were the magnetic ones and had a good amount of 'tar' on them. The solid state ones went right in. I'm not up to reworking the garage but when I lit the shed last month it was LEDs. The difference was amazing!

[bangerjim]

Scrap it! Don't waste time and money on a new ballast if you can even find one these daze!

I am in the process of replacing all 14 of my 40 watt old flor shop lights (working and non-working) with LED's. They only cost about $30 each (complete!) at Lowe's. Don't go for those "replacement LED tubes for old lights!). Buy the entire fixture and enjoy the BRIGHT (4K lumens) they provide for pennies a day.

banger

[John Wayne]

To answer the original question, by touching the bulbs you became the best path to ground. Check your ground with a 3 prong plug in type tester available at any home supply, cheap. If it lights correctly at the outlet with good ground, then the fixture, inside the fixture, the ground wire was not screwed into the metal frame of the fixture. You would not want to be standing on a wet floor and touch the housing of that fixture. I watched EMT's try to start a neighbors heart who placed his hand on the vent-a hood above the stove, wet floor and couldn't let go till my other neighbor cut the power at the panel. All that power going through Mr. Byers and it did not trip the breaker. He died a week later.

[frkelly74]

We are in the process of replacing all the old fluorescent tubes at Church with LED tubes. I am scrapping the ballasts and it seems that the market is flooded with old ballasts. They are the same price as sheet Iron right now. It is exceedingly simple to re-wire an old fixture to accept LED tubes. The last ones I bought were less than $10 each. The power company gave the church about 300 , 4000K LED tubes , I have about 200 installed. They are nice.

[JSnover]

Scrap it! Don't waste time and money on a new ballast if you can even find one these daze!

I am in the process of replacing all 14 of my 40 watt old flor shop lights (working and non-working) with LED's. They only cost about $30 each (complete!) at Lowe's. Don't go for those "replacement LED tubes for old lights!). Buy the entire fixture and enjoy the BRIGHT (4K lumens) they provide for pennies a day.

banger

You can still find them at Lowe's but I'm a convert: Next time they start acting up they're gone.

[sharps4590]

Until LED fixtures became affordable, the last 2-3 years I worked probably 1/2 of my work as a contractor was updating existing fluro fixtures to LED. It most assuredly was cost effective. IF, as has been mentioned, you have quality fixtures I would still recommend updating them to non ballasted, LED, T-8 lamps. Why would anyone leave a maintenance item in a fixture when you don't have to?

Winger and Mal Paso have the right of it regarding why your lamps come on when you touch them.

[Soundguy]

Good question.

I think it works along the lines of when our parents used to beat us kids.
We'd straighten right out and get with the program.

It's a charge issue with the ionized gas and your static charge. Think of it as a truck jumping another truck with a weak battery. Your static charge upped the potential in the ionized gas of the light to allow for it to go on... and excite the phosphor.

For all us/you electrical guys out there.. yes that is a oversimplification.... but it's close.

[gwpercle]

Why did three channels come in when my little brother held one of the TV rabbit ears ... he didn't have to hold both ... just one !
Watching three different channels on that black and white screen was something ...
...we usually got one channel with a sometimes picture and sound and one snowy channel with sound and all the rest of the channels was nothing but static ! The good old days .

[bangerjim]

Why did three channels come in when my little brother held one of the TV rabbit ears ... he didn't have to hold both ... just one !
Watching three different channels on that black and white screen was something ...
...we usually got one channel with a sometimes picture and sound and one snowy channel with sound and all the rest of the channels was nothing but static ! The good old days .

The human body, with all it's surface area, usually makes an excellent RF antenna.

And no, those were NOT good old days!

[fecmech]

Just want to add a little factoid to the original post. I never got around to replacing the fixture because as we went into the fall the light started working by itself. It has worked all through the winter till a couple weeks ago as we got into our summer pattern and the humidity level in the basement rose a bit. I now again must touch the bub to make it light. The humidity evidently affects something.

[Shawlerbrook]

HF and most other discount places have LED fixtures for less than $20. Only way to go.

[45_Colt]

Just want to add a little factoid to the original post. I never got around to replacing the fixture because as we went into the fall the light started working by itself. It has worked all through the winter till a couple weeks ago as we got into our summer pattern and the humidity level in the basement rose a bit. I now again must touch the bub to make it light. The humidity evidently affects something.

Yep, it is the humidity that affects them and causes the no-light-up. Had/have the same issue here, both 2' and 4' bulbs do it. It seems that this all started once the government mandated higher efficiency bulbs. Never had a problem prior to then (back in the Bush Jr days).

Swapping to an electronic ballast works, but is expensive and is now difficult to find them.

The shop fixtures ended up having the ballasts removed and direct wired to the bulb connectors (tombstones). Then T8 LED bypass bulbs installed (into a T12 fixture, they go right in).

Other then the rewire and install of the LED bulbs nothing else was done or replaced. Now I enter the shop, flip the switch, and have light. Sure as heck beats going around fondling the fluorescent bulbs to get them to light up.

Oh yea, the two 4' fixtures in the laundry room also got the LED treatment. With one fixture having a bad ballast it was a win/win there.

45_Colt

[WRideout]

When you touch the tube your capacitance to ground stimulates the arc inside the tube that generates the uv that stimulates the florescent material on the inside of the tube to produce visible light.

I vote for costco shop lights for $20 or less.

Sometimes capacitance to ground will cause a LED shoplight over a cement floor to glow a little when shut off. Sometimes reversing the plug will fix it.

Same reason that on the old portable radios, one could touch, or even get near the telescoping antenna, and it would receive better.
Wayne