so the other day I was going through Qs for our show, and noticed this
fluorescent light acting weird, sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t. Now we did work on this last year because it wasn’t working, so we replaced the
ballast and the light last year which in my opinion I don’t think it could have gone out that fast. Could it possibly be a short? Ever since our school had a renovation in 2009 this light
fixture has been giving us problems. Any clue on what it could possibly be?
@Christian Lake Is the
fluorescent in question a work light normally powered on an off by a standard wall
switch or is it being powered via a
non-dim or
dimmer from your performance lighting
system? If the latter, try adding a purely resistive
load in parallel with the supply to the
fluorescent.
Fluorescent fixtures contain ballasts. Decades ago, the ballasts would've been
wire wound around a magnetic core, creating a highly inductive load. This was no problem for wall switches but neither solid state non-dims nor solid state dimmers dealt well with highly inductive loads. In modern times, many ballasts are electronic rather than simply
wire wound around cores; either way, solid state non-dims or dimmers will not deal well with them.
Pay attention to your
non-dim or
dimmer's load ratings and DO NOT exceed their ratings.
Purely resistive dummy loads could be: A 40, 60 or 100
watt, 120 volt lamp or a toaster or heating pad.
If you're using a lamp, you may need to locate it off
stage, or least mask it so it doesn't distract from your lighting on
stage.
If you're using a toaster, be aware it may decide your toast is ready and
switch off, thus leaving you without your
dummy load.
If using a toaster, be VERY careful the toaster doesn't consume more watts than your
non-dim or
dimmer is rated for.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard