In article ,
terry writes:
On Nov 21, 11:54*am, "GB" wrote:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...dex/Lighting_F...

Peter

Brilliant, thanks, Peter and Harry - that's what i wanted to know. For some
reason Google shopping did not find any of these. I'll try my local
electrical wholesalers first.

Realizing that the UK is 230 volt 50 hertz just thought I'd mention
our most successful experiences here with 115 volt 60 hertz. All but
two of the fluorescent fixtures here are from used/dumped equipment.
We also have quite a number of spare but used ballasts. Having taken
the opportunity to grab some from a nearby school renovation project
that were being dumped. The job electricians even helped us load them
into our vehicle!
Each ballast has about 8 wires which are colour coded so it's easy to
see where they connect; splicing joining of wires is required. Here we
Modern fixtures (here) btw do not use
'starters'.

US (or American in general) fluorescent control gear is somewhat more
complicated than the gear commonly used in 220-250V countries, because
the lower mains voltage in the US means you can't simply get away with
a series ballast, as has been generally used elsewhere for 70 years.
It tends to be based on a stepup transformer, ballast, and rapid start
transformer, or a leakage reactance transformer which combines all 3
functions on one core. Our series ballasts have just two wires connected,
and are much smaller and cheaper (and more reliable, notwithstanding
this thread;-).

Electronic control gear took over here commercially 10+ years ago.
In the domestic market, series ballasts are still common, although
electronic control gear is now taking over that too. EU rules will
force that eventually. Existing series ballast switchstart fittings
will continue to be in service for decades though.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]