"Stuart Fields" wrote in message
...



For an extension to our building, I bought 17 Shop Light brand model 1233
fixtures from Home Depot. Some of these fixtures failed shortly after
moving the ladder. These units kept failing so I contacted the mfr. and
lo and behold they sent me free 17 complete new units. Guess what? Yep
they failed almost faster than I could put them up. I informed the mfr.
and told them please don't send me any more of those units even if they
attached a $20 bill on each one. Since I had made my installation around
the size of these units, I have been buying a better ballast and replacing
the failed ballasts. I offered all the failed ballasts to Home Depot as I
didn't want them; they didn't want them either. Along side of these
failing units were some that are now 36 years old and require rare bulb
changes only.


The very cheapest dual 4' fluorescents have a simple inductor, a solid state
"starter" to energize the filaments, and a capacitor - I've seen a plethora
of these fail - for two reasons - shorts in the inductor and shorts in teh
capacitor - particularly the cap. The capacitor is unprotected, just a roll
of aluminum and mylar (or poly?), no outside cover - it absorbs moisture and
it is subject to mechanical damage - another penny spent on a cover would
have tripled the life, but of course that is a penny of lost profit - so, at
a minimum I would avoid this type altogether.

The electronic versus inductive ballast issue is not clear cut - generally
electronic ballasts are more efficient, but as some have pointed out, they
are more fragile if there are significant power line voltage spikes.