yuandrew
Flashlight Enthusiast
I found this old ballast in the back of a drawer in the air conditioning tool room at my school. Since it was old and most of the lights in the building were already switched over to electronic ballast and T8 lamps, I talked Ron into letting me keep this old ballast.
Since it says it could do 32 watt tubes, I decided to see if it could fire off a Sylvania Octron FO32T8 841 tube I have although T8 tubes normally work on electronic ballasts. The wires were just twisted onto the pins and the "starter" was just two bare wires I had to touch together then separate in the same manner as some desk lamps where you have to hold the button down to start the lamp. The ballast didn't seem to have enough "kick" to get the T8 tube going at first but after quickly tapping the wires together many times, I finally did get it going. Ignore my toe in the first picture.
In this day and age of Electronic Instant-Start ballasts, who still remembers the old "flash, flash, flash, on" and the 60 hz buzz and flickering tubes ?
I'll look around to see if I have a FS-4 starter and a "starter socket".
Also, anyone know where I can find electronic "quick starters" in the US ? They seem to be more popular in other countries, especially Australia.
http://users.tpg.com.au/pschamb/light.html
BTW, I wonder if there's PCB oil in this thing. It does not have a "No PCBs" lable on it.:thinking:
Since it says it could do 32 watt tubes, I decided to see if it could fire off a Sylvania Octron FO32T8 841 tube I have although T8 tubes normally work on electronic ballasts. The wires were just twisted onto the pins and the "starter" was just two bare wires I had to touch together then separate in the same manner as some desk lamps where you have to hold the button down to start the lamp. The ballast didn't seem to have enough "kick" to get the T8 tube going at first but after quickly tapping the wires together many times, I finally did get it going. Ignore my toe in the first picture.
In this day and age of Electronic Instant-Start ballasts, who still remembers the old "flash, flash, flash, on" and the 60 hz buzz and flickering tubes ?
I'll look around to see if I have a FS-4 starter and a "starter socket".
Also, anyone know where I can find electronic "quick starters" in the US ? They seem to be more popular in other countries, especially Australia.
http://users.tpg.com.au/pschamb/light.html
BTW, I wonder if there's PCB oil in this thing. It does not have a "No PCBs" lable on it.:thinking:
