DIYbanter - View Single Post - Constitutionality of light bulb ban questioned - Environmental Protection Agency must be called for a broken bulb

James Sweet[_2_]

wrote:
In alt.engineering.electrical Andrew Gabriel wrote:
| In article x_b7k.231$zE6.202@trnddc02,
| James Sweet writes:
|
|
|
| T8's were designed in Europe to retrofit into T12 fittings and
| provide energy savings. That doesn't work with the control gear
| used on US 120V mains, where I believe you require different
| control gear for the T8's and T12's of the same length.
|
|
| A UK friend and I have discussed this at length and I've sent him some
| 4' T8 lamps to play with. As I recall, we concluded that US T8 lamps are
| electrically different than the UK lamps.
|
| Very likely -- they're different ratings too. A 4' T8 designed for
| a 40W ballast on 220-240V is rated 36W. Your 4' T8 is 32W IIRC.
| Likewise all the other T8 tube lengths are differently rated between
| US and elsewhere.
|
| They're 230mA and over here they all use electronic ballasts.
|
| They're designed for switchstart operation here (known as
| preheat in the US). Of course, there are electronic ballasts
| available for many years, but not when they first came out.

I wonder what it would be like in the USA if we wired our fluorescent lights
to 240 volts instead of 120 volts. Virtually all homes have it (or at least
208 volts). Of course we'd need 2-pole switches. But at least it's still
only 120 volts shock potential relative to ground.

It would be like it is in most of Europe, choke ballasts with glowbottle
starters. A bit more efficient than our autotransformer ballasts, but
still less than modern electronic.