Universal Voltage Ballast

K2

I been using some of the multi voltage ballast for a couple of months now and have not been impressed. The sylvania 3/2 lamp seems underpowered at 120 and fails at 277. The advanced intellivolt 4 pin 26 watt has a high failure rate and has been pulled off the shelf at our supplier.

I'm going back to 120 or 277 ballast for a while until I here better things about multi volts.

I'd like to see a voltage indicator on future multi volt. I like to instantly know what voltage I'm dealing with.

mdshunk

I wish they'd just do a multi-tap and be done with this automatic voltage sensing nonsense. I find the electronic ballasts to have a much higher realized failure rate than the same ballast in magnetic. I'll sell an electronic retrofit job in a heartbeat, but I think the technology needs a little bit more iron in its gut.

Speedy Petey

Thank you

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macmikeman

Daggomeit, I missed E-1's post. Word has it he is Da Man. Anyway, back to ballasts. What I have experienced is that the dual type set on 120 volt jobs tend to go bad sometimes when there is a spike from the poco. They get locked on the 277. Save em for replacement jobs on commercial.

K2

I always miss all the good stuff too.

I installed an intellivolt t8 ho tonight and it didn't want to start but finally did. I think it will be dead by next week. At a hundred dollars a pop the things should work.

Sparky Joe

Never heard of a T8-HO, but then there's lots of things I haven't heard. Do you mean T5?

mdshunk

I just noticed that he said H.O. I never heard of them before either. I just looked up T8 HO, and they in fact exist. Learn something new every day. I didn't know that 96" T8 lamps existed until a few months ago when I put some fixtures in that were customer spec'd that took 96" T8 lamps. Now that's a high dollar lamp.

Sparky Joe

Those must be a nightmare to haul around, especially in your messy van MD

mdshunk

I don't keep spares in the van, silly. I do transport fluorescent lamps in the case that they come in to prevent breakage, even if I only need one or two from the case. That's one reason how I knew that the 96" T8's were expensive, because I had to buy a case. I only needed 8 lamps. Those lamps were around 10 bucks a piece, my cost. That was about a $250 case of lamps.

K2

The t8 ho comes in 4'or 8'. I use mostly 8' with 4's on the ends.

I'm no fan of 8' lamps but when you look at 2 8's covering the distance of 4 4's they are not so pricey. In the days of 2-lamp only ballast, 8' lamps and ballast were cost effective. Even today I've only seen 2 lamp ho ballasts so running a quater mile of ho's would be less expensive using 8 footers.

I found my t8 ho 8' ballast for $32 instead of $88. GE Proline. Looks like they wire up parallel with 3 leads out so they should light with only one lamp in place. That will be nice in an ho. They are still uni-volt but I think I'll try a few.

Sparky Joe

So how many watts are these T8-HO's (4 footers)?

We did a job earlier this fall, the print spec'd out T8 6 lamp high bays, we had over a hundred installed when we had to do some body work on one and finally noticed they were all T5's. Big problem; seeing as they draw twice as much and everything was already circuited, and the motion sensor's and power packs were installed, and the power company had already given their 'kick-back' according to T8's. We kept the T5's and I'll say screw you if a foreman ever says I'm wasting time putting spare pipes on a rack.

Little off subject, but just wanted to share, Thanks

K2

44 watts. They are bright.

CE1

Shouldn't be 54 watts for a HO T5 as in F54T5HO? I have never seen a HO T8, the T8's only come as a F32T8 and are 32 watts.

RobertWilber

I got stuck using these dogs by SOLA last night
they didn't have 120s and I had to get the repair done
it took ten ballasts to fix 7 lights.
what crap
2 just plain didn't work and one did the Haight-Ashbury strobe ...

Electric_Light

T8 HOs have been around for at least past five years, but they're not quite as energy efficient.

They're available in 44W 4', 55W 5', 65W 6' and 86W 8'.

The regular 265mA (or so) T8s are available in 17,25,32 & 40W. The 40W with the 17W being 1' and going up by a foot in each increment. I've never seen a 40W outside of catalog though.

Underpowered? Datasheet shows they use the same wattage at 120 & 277v and have the same output.

Advance makes "Standard Electronic" which is 120 or 277v. REL-2P32-SC for 2 lamp 120v. These things are probably more resilient because the input is a coil-and-core type power factor corrector which absorbs surges to an extent... HOWEVER because of this power factor correction coil,(passive power factor correction) despite Advance's claim, these suckers hums just as bad or nearly as bad as magnetic ballast. These are also heavier and <20% THD rated.


The "Centium" series used to come in 120 & 277v, but many of the dedicated ones are being discontinued and they're now 108 to 305v (120 & 277V +/- 10%). These are lighter and have a <10% THD rating. These are active power factor correction using high frequency electronic components.

Something not mentioned on Advance site is that the Centium is a constant-power ballast, so the power usage and output remains the same at 110v or 130v With their standard series, the power consumption is affected significantly by input voltage, although if the voltage changes suddenly, it will flicker.

This is both good and bad. The area lighting level remains unaffected by voltage and high line voltage doesn't increase power consumption, but these ballasts do not respond to planned energy saving voltage reduction at all. If the facility/utility reduces voltage 5%, the ballasts simply spits back at them by electronically compensating to draw 5% more current to draw the same power.

Also, they're ABSOLUTELY SILENT, so by selecting wisely, you can ensure customer satisfaction.

The passive PFC ballasts are cheaper and work just as well where humming isn't a concern, so it's a good idea to specify them from cost perspective anyways.

K2

I've used the 40w 5 footer in reach in coolers & freezers. They are nice because you can run a regular 3 lamp instant start ballast with a capped lead for 20 bucks instead of the hundred dollar Anthony ballast. Of course the Anthony with the 56w lamp, (add another $20), is better light.

Electric_Light

I think LEDs and T5 HOs will have success in the future. A study by LRC at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute found that consumer responded more favorably to freezer case lit by LEDs placed in multiple locations rather than fluorescent at the sides. LEDs do not become inefficient at freezer temperature so they don't need to be provided a given power to stay in optimal efficiency range.

For fluorescent setup, HO lamps are preferred since the higher energy density helps them stay at optimal performance temperature at the climate these lamps work

K2

I'm seeing t-8's in the newer grocery store customer access coolers and freezers. I think all the Wall Mart reach ins are t-8?

Speedy Petey

I agree. T-5 HO high-bays are the wave of the future, along with other fixture types.

My supply house has on display a new 4' T-5 strip fixture (shop light) with a chrome reflector pan. Talk about BRIGHT!

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Electric_Light

Check out the lighting on big box stores. Some Home Depots are using T5 HOs instead of metal halides.