Question About Home Flourescent Lighting

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TrainTrac

TrainTrac

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I have a four-tube flourescent light assembly in my laundry room, and it won't turn on. I've checked the voltage coming from the ceiling to the light, and my multimeter shows ~122.5VAC.



So I'm thinking that the electronic ballast went bad, since that's the only thing between the bulbs and source voltage. Am I on the right track? Do those things go out?
 
Train Trac I believe that the 4 tube lights use two ballasts. BTW if one of a pair of bulbs is bad, the other one won't light. Try new bulbs first by borrowing them from a working fixture or moving the one in the unit around. The answer to ballasts going bad is correct. If you have two ballasts the likelihood of both going out is pretty poor.
 
MikeC is right on target. You may only have one ballast that is bad. It's almost like old Christmas lights. I would check bulbs first. One may just set the whole thing dark.;)
 
How old is the fixture? I had my 2 bulber ballast go out in the laundry room after 5 years. I went for the whole fixture replacement with the smaller bulbs that are brighter and more energy efficient. A year later and I am still surprised by how bright my laundry room is. Now I am waiting for 3 fixtures (same age) in the garage to start going. I will definitely go for the new bulbs/fixtures and will have some fun climbing up to them (12' ceiling).
 
They do make fixtures with one ballast for 4 lamps. I would try new lamps first and then look at the ballast. If it does have two ballast only two lights will burn if one ballast is out. You could have some bad lamp holders too, plus make sure that the lamps are positioned properly in the holders. The only other thing I can think of is, some fluorescent fixtures will not burn if you switch the neutral (white) and the power (probably black) wires, make sure you have white to white and black to black. Otherwise, as the others say, try new lamps and then go with the ballast. Note: check pricing, sometimes you can find a new fixture cheaper than you can buy a ballast. Some electronic ballast are not cheap.
 
As an electrician I change ballasts all week long. Highly doubt you have two ballasts in there. If the bulbs are four foot T-8's get a GE-433-N-Ultra. If they are eight foot bulbs you will need an F96 type.
 
The GE ballast for your light is about $35.00 at Grainger and probably close to the same at Home Depot. You can find cheaper ones like those made by Advance, but the GE are the best if you ask me.
 
A word of caution. Not that you would do it anyway, but a ballast can put out about ten times the power that is connected to it so shut the switch off. You will find after disconnecting the power wires (black and white) if you cut the other ones which will be two yellow, two blue and two red the new ballast will simply have the same colors and it is easy to just wirenut together. As long as you kill the power it is real simple to change, the ballast will even have a simple wiring diagram on it.
 
BTW if one of a pair of bulbs is bad, the other one won't light.
Click to expand...



Not true, I have over twenty 4 tube fixtures in my office and the lights go out in pairs, not all at once.
 
Thanks for all the input, guys. I should've clarified that it's a four-tube light fixture with one electronic ballast module.



Ericc,



I just checked again, and the ballast in my light is an Advance brand. I'll look around for the GE version. Thanks for the tip!:)
 
I have installed a good many ballast-resisters and I have found about 2% of them are wired wrong.



Nothing upsets me more than to do the work only to figure out the black wire SHOULD be the white and the white SHOULD be the black wire....



Got to love quality control....
 
go out and buy yourself a new light that uses a t-8 bulb any cost with the new fixture will be overcome within a year in energy savings some are right a t-12 fixture will not light if one of the bulbs are bad a t-8 will light if one bulb is bad if both go out it will probably be a ballast unless you dont notice one of the bulbs burn out and you still have light and think every thing is ok we have many customers who call us for a ballast when it is just the bulbs we had a customer that said his parking lot lights dont work he never noticed that one at a time all the bulbs went bad untill his parking spot was dark!
 
OK, this is weird... the light in question just mysteriously came back on, after not working for two days. :blink:



We U.S. Navy Electronic Technicians had an official technical term for such an occurence:



PFM.
 
Sounds like a loose connection somewhere. It could be the lamp, (it's not a bulb), or it could be one of the wires connecting to the lamp socket. Did you measure the voltage between the black and the white wire, or the black and the ground wire? It could be a bad splice on the white.



With the power off try lightly pulling individually on all of the wires. It will only take one secondary wire (the red, blue, or yellow) to cause the light not to function correctly.
 

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