Don Klipstein wrote:

Although I agree with these presented facts, I do not find majority
extent (slightly short of 100% even if hardly) of negation of some
advantages of electronic ballasts to be any argument at all against
arguments on basis of unrelated issues such as energy efficiency (reduce
power consumption anywhere from roughly 7 watts to roughly 25 watts per
pair of 4-footers, depending on who you listen to and also depending on
what you do! Replace a pair of F40T12's and a non-electronic ballast for
these with a pair of F32T8's and an electronic ballast for those and power
consumption has a good chance of being decreased by roughly 24-25 watts -

Replace a 40w tube with a 36w T8 and the power use also falls, though
not as much as that, due to mag ballast losses.

However, that is not the real world comparison. The real world energy
comparison also involves:
- energy used in transport to go get a new fitting
- energy used in manufacture of new fittings
- energy used in parts/materials of new fitting
- energy used in disposal of old fitting
- energy used in manufacturing, supplying and applying a coat of paint
to the ceiling when end user notices the new fitting is not identically
sized to the old, and the resulting paint appearance is bad.

If you do a real world energy comparison, it is more than hard to
justify replacing the fitting on energy saving grounds.

It is also false to justify it on reliability grounds.

And in this case, it can not be justified on the basis of starting
performance (which is typically lousy with glowstarts).

The claim of risk resulting from strobing in domestic situations is not
valid, see above post about that.

So in short, a case for replacing the fitting just doesnt exist.


along with a majority of red and green colored objects being illuminated
more brightly!

this surely is down to the tube, not the ballast. T12 UK glowstart
fittings are T8 compatible. It is common to find T8 tubes in older T12
fittings here.


NT