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Replacing ballast in old light fitting - advice from those that know please sought!

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
Hi everyone

Wow, it's been some time since I was here.... it's all changed! I've not been doing a huge amount of electrical work of late, although now. have a conundrum which I can't seem find out the answer to.. so of course I though of you all. Fingers crossed.


I have a client who is VERY attached to an old light fitting. Its a fluorescent. Having replaced both tubes and starters, its still not working (there is power) so I'm thinking to change the ballast. However, all the replacements seem to be HF which don't require starters. Would it work with the starters? Or would I have to rewire the light to by pass them?


No lighting supplier has proved helpful in answering my query but hopefully someone here can help me out.

many thanks

BB



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  • 0
    seconded on the straight forward - if you have the no and wattage of the original tubes to hand, it should be possible to find the wiring instructions and suggest a suitable the ballast now.

    Assuming you do not need emergency light functionality, dimming, computer control,  or operation off DC supplies, it is simply a case of an  L and N go in, and wires to the tube caps come out, the only important part is to get the pairs of wires to the tube end caps for the heaters correct.

    If you don't it tries to put the 150V or so for the tube (complete with brief starter twitches of over 1kV, so do not try to measure this with your best meter) across the heater, and about 6V that should have been for a heater across the length of the tube, and this sort of error is not good for the ballast or the tube.


    The other problem is that the existing internal wiring will almost certainly not reach and if it does it will  not be the right diameter for the funny push fit terminals. Allow extra time for this.
Reply
  • 0
    seconded on the straight forward - if you have the no and wattage of the original tubes to hand, it should be possible to find the wiring instructions and suggest a suitable the ballast now.

    Assuming you do not need emergency light functionality, dimming, computer control,  or operation off DC supplies, it is simply a case of an  L and N go in, and wires to the tube caps come out, the only important part is to get the pairs of wires to the tube end caps for the heaters correct.

    If you don't it tries to put the 150V or so for the tube (complete with brief starter twitches of over 1kV, so do not try to measure this with your best meter) across the heater, and about 6V that should have been for a heater across the length of the tube, and this sort of error is not good for the ballast or the tube.


    The other problem is that the existing internal wiring will almost certainly not reach and if it does it will  not be the right diameter for the funny push fit terminals. Allow extra time for this.
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