Electronic Fluorescent Ballast

fast pasquale

bought a fixture at lowes 3.5 years ago and now the ballast went. It's make by general innovations llc. Called lowes and they basically told me tough luck. Brought this thing (i removed it from the fixture) to a couple supply houses no luck. Am i just going to have to purchase a new fixture?? Seems like bs to me.. i hardly ever used this fixture and spent 100 bucks on it. It's Portfolio.... no way that it's still warrantied?? Thanks

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Chris Frate
Pasquale Floors

K2

What length lamps are in there??

Speedy Petey

I hate to break it to you but Portfolio fixtures are total junk!

Go to a real supply house and tell them what lamps are in this fixture. They will give you a new ballast based on this. I am surprised they did not do that before.

A new ballast will run about $25-$30.

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K2

If I buy a fixture at the Pepot or Lowes I usually toss the ballast right away and put a quality ballast in. Their fixtures are ok, but most have a junk ballast.

mdshunk

I went through this with an elderly couple about three weeks ago. Crappy Lowe's fixture, that took one 30 watt 8" Circline lamp. Not only is that a super-odd lamp, but the ballast was hard to source. It was a catalog item, but nothing in stock in any warehouse the supply house could pull up. Took a day or two for lamp, and almost a week to get the ballast. I'm sure the lamp and ballast was more than the fixture cost in the first place, but now they've got something good that might last until they die.

mdshunk

I just thought that I should re-iterate what Peter advised....

When you're sourcing an odd ballast, forget about the current ballast and any brand or model that might be on it. Just go to a real electrical supply house with the lamp that goes in the fixture and tell them you need a ballast for that lamp. There might be a couple of choices with regard to "form factor", so you'll want to stick around to make sure you can pick one that will fit in the fixture the best.

fast pasquale

I pretty much guessed that Portfolio was junk. Thanks MD.. i'll do that. The length bulb is about 7 inches in length. It says plc 18w 2700k on the side.


BTW.. am i the only one who subscribes to "instant email notification" and is rarely notified. For example.. i checked my mail and nothing was there from contractortalk.com???

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Chris Frate
Pasquale Floors

K2

Is that a 4 prong stab in??

mdshunk

I think it is. Here's the page from the Phillips catalog: http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/...3749d068f3f129

That 2700 degree Kelvin lamp is absolute bottom of the barrell. That has to be really sickly pink light. If it was me, I'd get a 3500 or 4100 lamp to go along with that new ballast.

Pasquale... you should be able to find a ballast for that lamp as a stock item at your local electrical supply house. It's not all that odd of a lamp. If you get the electronic version, they're really compact. Granted, it mght not mount the exact same way as the junk Chinese ballast that came in it, but you'll figure it out.

K2

Are you looking for something like this??

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K2

Fast, If it was my house and I only had one of that type of fixture I'd get a regular screw in socket and convert that to a Screw in compact fluorescent. Screw in cf's have come a long way.

I personally use a bunch of these stab in's so if you want to change the ballast I'll send you one for 10 bucks. Theyre about $35 online.

MD I disagree on 27K. It is a relaxing light or an evening light close to the color of incandescent and firelight. You don't want to kick back at the end of the day turn on the tv and turn on a lamp at 42 or 50 k.

mdshunk

Maybe so. Lighting design is something I don't know too much about. It's a little bit like jewelry or art. Everyone likes something different. When I turn on a light, I want bright white light. Pink light, such as would come from 27K makes me want to vomit. That's just me, though.

K2

It's not supposed to be pink. I've seen some lamp ballast combinations burn pink for an hour or so until they burn in then they are fine. But those had nothing to do with the K temp.

K2

One of the local lighting shops has a room set up and switched with all the different K temps, coatings, and CRI's. It's interesting to see the colors side by side but what is really amazing is when the CRI gets changed.

K2

"Meat Market" lights will burn pink. Those are the ones in the meat cases at the grocery store. They call them "full spectrum" and claim they decrease the rate of decay on the meat. In my opinion they are a hokus pokus lamp designed to make meat look fresher... Your grocer will pay $30 a pop for these so they must do something.

fast pasquale

First off, thanks alot guys. Yes its a 4 prong. k2.. i would i be able to fit it into this fixture.. Are you saying you would send me the 4 prong?? Dumb question .. i have a digital camera.. how do i take a pic of it so i can show you guys??

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Chris Frate
Pasquale Floors

K2

I'll send you the ballast, the lamp, or both. I'll pm you.

Electric_Light

I think the trend is changing. A few years ago, you would not find anything but 2700 or 3000K at Home Depot. Between HD and Lowe's, you could find F32T8 lamps in 3000, 3500, 4100, 5000 and 6500K color temperatures if you look carefully and they're OSI(Sylvania), Philips or GE, the best.

I agree though, 2700K-3000K CFLs look orange or pink compared to a regular light bulb.

Home Depot and Lowe's around here are better places for lamps(referring to the light producing element, never a table "lamp" which would be called a fixture) as they stock OSI, Sylvania or GE. Lamp wholesalers around here carry brands like Greenlite, TCP or SLI, which are usually not manufacturers, but importers.

A lot of decorative fixtures have a junk ballast as K2 said. They're short lived and hard on lamps. There are two consumer demands: PRICE and instant-on and these two together is asking for trouble.

The type of ballast that lights up the lamp instantly wears out the lamp every time it's started and isn't the best fit for frequently used applications, but at the same time, consumers expect light-bulb like start up behavior.

For an 18W CFL, like the one OP mentioned(called CFQ18W/G24Q), Advance ICF-2S18-H1-LD program-rapid start ballast provides 50 to 100 thousand starts before lamp failure and they can be switched frequently like incandescent lamps without much effect on the lamp, however it takes 1.5 seconds to light up.

They also make a QSE version, which starts up in <1 second, but at the expense of only getting about 10,000 starts/lamp.

These ballasts aren't cheap, although they come with a 5 year warranty.

CFLs still sucks compared to linear lamp in life, efficiency and output maintenance, but they're really the only option for smaller, residential fixtures. For larger ones, such as 2' x 2' square, U bent 32W T8 is a good option.

Where linear lamps are practical, you can have more or less a lifetime bulb setup in a typical residential usage pattern by specifying Philips ALTO II Extra Long Life lamps and a programmed start electronic ballast.

The setup provides 40,000 hours @ 3hr/start and 46,000hours @ 12 hr/start and the lamps hold 94% of useful output throughout their useful life.

So, in residential application where total usage is ~6 hrs/day, but switched 4 times a day. Even after derating the life to 30,000 hours, you'll get about 14 years of service, which is more or less, lifetime in a way that it's probably due for remodel by then.

For common corridors and other areas where lamps are on 24/7/365 duration to 50% lamp failure is about 5 years. Quite nice from maintenance perspective. Since 50% failure is not acceptable, I guess they'd have to be relamped at around 80% rated average and you can keep the failure rate <20%.

K2

I'm not sure what you guys are buying that looks pink but 2700K is the color of firelight, candlelight. Warm, welcoming, inviting. Especially this time of year most people after working all day in sunlight or in the micro chip cleanroom at 6000K, 145 foot candles want to come to the color of the fire in the hearth and have dinner with the color of candle light. If you go out shopping after dinner the store with the warm outside and entry lighting will say "you are welcome here". Once inside they'll probably hit you with something a little stronger with a higher cri to show off their overpriced product.... That's been my experience anyway but I live in Colorado with 320 sunny days a year. I don't want daylight after 5 o'clock in December.

Electric_Light

What I meant is that when compared side by side, most CFLs have an orange or pink tinge compared to an incandescent pink, I did not mean Barbie pink.

There are two types of "color temperature".

Blackbody radiator, which is true temperature of the emitter and best fit to blackbody curve known as correlated color temperature aka CCT.

A light bulb is almost a perfect black body radiator and has a CRI of 100. The filament actually burns around 2500°C.

An older halophosphor warm white fluorescent lamps have a CRI of around 50 and a CCT of 3,000K. What this means is that the point that it best corresponds to the true blackbody curve is at 3,000K but doesn't have to have the same spectral power distribution.

All modern CFLs with Energy Star logo will have a CRI of >80(part of the requirement) and a CCT of 2700-3000K. They employ a polychromatic phosphor and chromaticity don't correspond perfectly with an incandescent lamp.

I can tell 2700K CFLs and light bulbs apart without looking at the shape of the bulb.


It's a matter of personal and cultural preference. Higher CCT lamps are far more common in Europe than here for home use.

It's about right light.

apparel & jewelry:
CRI 5,000K general lighting + high CCT halogen MR lamps such as the Solux brand 4100 to 5000K lights are great, as these present the products as close to the same way they look outdoors as possible.

art, graphics design, color matching;
5,000 to 7500K, CRI >90 depending on specific requirements.

furniture:
3,000K & general purpose halogen as they'll likely be used in such lighting conditions after they're purchased and gives the item the same appearance at customers' home and in show room.