garage fluorescent tubes slow to start

[edwardh1]

dual 4 ft long fluorescent tubes in garage ceiling when you turn the wall switch on, glow dimly , turn switch off and right back on, the tube lights?

they dont have starters that I can see.

need new tubes?

these are 5+ years old.

 

[SHOZ]

That would be my guess. Usually the ends darken on the tubes as they age. Time for LED bulbs? If so get the kind that you can bypass the original ballast and wire directly to 120v.

 

[JC1]

Try new tubes first. If that doesn't work it could be the ballast. Is the fixture humming when it's on?

 

[skyactiv]

Switch to LED bulbs, which the Home Depot has the best deal on and switch to T8 ballast. An observed bonus with LED lamps is they don't attract insects like other lighting technology does.


Note:

Do bugs go to LED lights?
For the same reason that bug lights do not attract insects. LED lights, specifically the bulbs typically used in residential lighting, emit very little light in the UV spectrum. LEDs also emit little heat from their light source, further reducing their attractiveness to bugs.

 

[PimTac]

Definitely go with leds. The light is perfect for any use.

 

[SHOZ]

If going LED don't bother with a ballast. You will save even more money by eliminating it. The 120v LED tubes are only a couple bucks more than the electronic ballast types. A new electronic ballast will cost more than a new lamp many times.

 

[Leo99]

I'm very happy with my new LEDs in the garage. No more flicker, no issues in the winter. They're great!

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Given where you are , take out the bulbs and clean the pins ( crocus or scotchbrite ). See it that helps for a while. Had Humid weather recently?

Same with car ignition, High humidity kills high voltage stuff due to leakage.

Again bulbs may be tired too. But cleaning contacts is work a try.

Finish off with some dry alcohol .. You can clean the pins with it too

 

[VeryNoisyPoet]

Possibly a rapid start ballast. While the tubes are glowing dimly, reach up and run your hand back and forth quickly along the tubes to see if they fire up. That means there could be a poor ground at the fixture's reflector, which helps start the tubes.

I agree that LED options have gotten quite good and relatively cheap these days, so look into those considering you may need to replace the tubes anyways.

 

[supton]

I agree, go ballast-less LED. I did that in my basement and am quite happy. 5 or 10 minutes per box to rewire. The tubes even came with the required wirenuts!

I did buy one of each color/temperature, to try out, before mass conversion. Bright white might be good over a bench but not so good elsewhere.

 

[edwardh1]

Originally Posted By: JC1
Try new tubes first. If that doesn't work it could be the ballast. Is the fixture humming when it's on?


no dont think so

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted By: skyactiv
Switch to LED bulbs, which the Home Depot has the best deal on and switch to T8 ballast. An observed bonus with LED lamps is they don't attract insects like other lighting technology does.


Note:

Do bugs go to LED lights?
For the same reason that bug lights do not attract insects. LED lights, specifically the bulbs typically used in residential lighting, emit very little light in the UV spectrum. LEDs also emit little heat from their light source, further reducing their attractiveness to bugs.


Very interesting about LED's not attracting insects. I didn't know this.

Now when you say bug lights don't attract insects, do you mean the yellow bulb for porch lamps and such?

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted By: skyactiv
Switch to LED bulbs, which the Home Depot has the best deal on and switch to T8 ballast. An observed bonus with LED lamps is they don't attract insects like other lighting technology does.


Note:

Do bugs go to LED lights?
For the same reason that bug lights do not attract insects. LED lights, specifically the bulbs typically used in residential lighting, emit very little light in the UV spectrum. LEDs also emit little heat from their light source, further reducing their attractiveness to bugs.


False. If you care to do real world testing, come over to my house and see them gather on the windows (only when the LED bulbs in the room are turned on). If there is no other greater source of UV, they will be most attracted to your LED lights, meaning no real difference, 100% as attracted if that's all there is for them to seek.

 

[Dave9]

LED replacements are [censored]! You only have three options to retrofit.

1) Obscenely expensive bulbs to get them properly engineered for enough heatsinking to achieve truthful high lumen ratings.

2) Light output is only 2/3rds (at most) what the fluorescent tube it replaces, produced. There are some marketing lies out there that try to twist this truth (because they know it's true) which state things like reflector losses, trying to pretend that light that is clearly reflected doesn't exist. Truth is, most of the usable light in a room has some % reflection, otherwise annoying dark shadows would be everywhere.

3) Overheats because they tried to get more light out than was possible with long lifespan. They might even tell you the LEDs are rated for 50K hours, which would be true if they were mounted on a good heatsink in a cold laboratory instead of the hot running cheap thing they made.

There are good reasons to switch to LED. Use more fixtures to make up for the light loss then you get faster turn-on, more cold temperature immunity, less risk of hazard from impact and resultant glass breakage. Lifespan if you only run them a few minutes at a time, but efficiency, not so much, LED retrofits have very little difference in efficiency compared to modern T8 tubes on a lumen per watt basis. If you can accept 35% less light then sure, 35% less light will use less power, lol.

 

[Cujet]

I purchased some ballast bypass "Hyperikon" brand 4 foot bulbs from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Compati...+hyperikon+4000

Quite simply, the light is fantastic. It's directional so it does not light up the ceiling as much as the originals. But the light on the workbench and cars is 200% brighter and really a pleasure to work under. Plus they are low glare from an angle, so they are pleasant. Absolutely 5 stars!

 

[Dave9]

Decent ballasts shouldn't wear out in 5 years but you put that "+" on the end. What does it mean? Does it mean you are approximating based on your purchase or all you know is they were there when you moved in so at least 5 years old?

Fluorescent T8 tubes tend to get dark marks at the ends when wearing out. If they have those then replace them.

Generally speaking when the ballasts go out they will start to blink on and off a few times when first turned on. As the ballast gets worse, eventually they will blink on and off and never reach full on, then eventually just stay off which at that point is the tube wearing out from the blinking. At that point you have both the ballast bad, causing the tube to darken at the ends.

SO, if the tube was a decent quality/brand and it failed too soon, odds are the ballast is bad. If the tube lasted 5+ years, replace the tube and go from there since a tube is fairly inexpensive.

 

[Dave9]

Originally Posted By: Cujet
I purchased some ballast bypass "Hyperikon" brand 4 foot bulbs from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Compati...+hyperikon+4000

Quite simply, the light is fantastic. It's directional so it does not light up the ceiling as much as the originals.


That makes no sense. There is no properly designed fluorescent tube housing that lights up the ceiling more. However, and this is the ironic part, I'd rather have the higher lumen fluorescent tubes casting some light onto the ceiling which diffuses it for even lighting, than just straight down glare and shadows from lower light output LED tubes.

It's okay to have buyer's remorse, to accept that marketing tricked a lot of people, not only you.


Quote:
But the light on the workbench and cars is 200% brighter and really a pleasure to work under. Plus they are low glare from an angle, so they are pleasant. Absolutely 5 stars!


No, absolutely backwards. The light is far dimmer, factually speaking this is science and there are decades established ways of measuring light.

You wrote "low glare from an angle" and that's the irony, that what little light they produce only seems brighter because it's a colder color temperature that blinds the human eye more than providing useful light. If you have to have it at an angle to reduce glare, which also further reduces MCD intensity, all you're left with is the impression they're bright based on your eyes seeing worse, which is quite opposite of the goal.

I realize this is a lot of information against the huge amount of lies, deceit, and marketing nonsense to pimp LEDs. It will take a while to research this and realize that I already have.

They measure lower on a light meter but even worse, that lower reading doesn't take into account the human eye's sensitivity to light spectrumm, what is useful and what is noise that prevents sensory perception.

 

[exranger06]

I have LED retrofit tubes in my garage and they are vastly superior to the fluorescent tubes IMO. They are rated at fewer lumens than the T8 fluorescent tubes, but to my untrained eye, they are just as bright, if not brighter than the fluorescents. (and I still have 2 T8s that haven't burned out yet that I'm still using, so I can see both types of bulbs lit up side by side). I was very unimpressed with the T8s. They burned out ridiculously fast, they were terribly dim in the cold weather and took a long time to warm up, they're a pain to dispose of, they're fragile and release mercury vapors if they break. I don't have any of those problems with LEDs. The LEDs I use can be used with or without a ballast. As the T8s burned out, I replaced them one-by-one with LED. So I had (and still have) fluorescents mixed with LED in the same fixture, so I needed something that would work with a ballast. Then one of my ballasts failed after less than 3 years use. Good thing that fixture was already 100% LED at that point. I simply removed the ballast, rewired the fixture, now the lights work and I never have to deal with a bad ballast ever again.

No buyers remorse going with LED here. I do however, have some buyers remorse from buying the fluorescent fixtures and tubes to start with.

 

[Chris142]

Back in the 70's my dad told he that LED's would be the way to go if they were able to make them for house use. As soon as they came out I bought them for my house and cut my power bill nearly in 1/2. Now I expect the power company to raise my rates because I don't use enough power!

 

[xxch4osxx]

Originally Posted By: Dave9
Originally Posted By: Cujet
I purchased some ballast bypass "Hyperikon" brand 4 foot bulbs from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Hyperikon-Compati...+hyperikon+4000

Quite simply, the light is fantastic. It's directional so it does not light up the ceiling as much as the originals.


That makes no sense. There is no properly designed fluorescent tube housing that lights up the ceiling more. However, and this is the ironic part, I'd rather have the higher lumen fluorescent tubes casting some light onto the ceiling which diffuses it for even lighting, than just straight down glare and shadows from lower light output LED tubes.

It's okay to have buyer's remorse, to accept that marketing tricked a lot of people, not only you.


Quote:
But the light on the workbench and cars is 200% brighter and really a pleasure to work under. Plus they are low glare from an angle, so they are pleasant. Absolutely 5 stars!


No, absolutely backwards. The light is far dimmer, factually speaking this is science and there are decades established ways of measuring light.

You wrote "low glare from an angle" and that's the irony, that what little light they produce only seems brighter because it's a colder color temperature that blinds the human eye more than providing useful light. If you have to have it at an angle to reduce glare, which also further reduces MCD intensity, all you're left with is the impression they're bright based on your eyes seeing worse, which is quite opposite of the goal.

I realize this is a lot of information against the huge amount of lies, deceit, and marketing nonsense to pimp LEDs. It will take a while to research this and realize that I already have.

They measure lower on a light meter but even worse, that lower reading doesn't take into account the human eye's sensitivity to light spectrumm, what is useful and what is noise that prevents sensory perception.


Do you own stocks in fluorecent tube light manufacturers?