On 13 Aug, 12:07, (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:
In article ,
* * * * Sidney Endon-Lee writes:



Hi all,

I've searched the group on Google groups and found two relevant
threads:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk..../thread/6371a7...

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk..../thread/1acd56...

In one of them the starters from Tabelek are recommended.

http://www.tabelek.co.uk/product-300...c-fluorescent-...

Does that recommendation still hold?

I'm after starters that don't either (a) wait an interminable interval
before deigning to start up the lamp or (b) go
blink...blink...blink...blinkety-ahah!

I've been using standard Osram ST111s, and even with a new starter and
a new tube, the behaviour is generally (b).

Personally, I like the light to come on in a reasonably short period
after I've flicked the lightswitch, and not try and give me an
epileptic seizure while doing so.

For conventional ballasts, there are electronic starters.
They are mostly based on a dedicated semiconductor IC, Y1112
which is called a Fluoractor - a dedicated electronic starter.
It has a starting sequence it goes through, the timing of which
is governed by external components. IIRC, there's a preheat phase
where it just heats the tube filaments. Then there's a striking
phase where continuously tries striking the tube by interrupting
the preheat current at peaks of the current to generate back-EMF
to strike the tube. This back-EMF will strike the tube without
the pre-heating -- the pre-heating is just to extend the tube
life. Is is possible to reduce the pre-heat period to almost
nothing, so the tube instart-starts. These are noisy during
starting though, due to the nasty waveform through the ballast
whilst generating the back-EMF striking voltage.
The difficult part is finding a starter which uses a fluoractor
and has a short preheat time. I did have a PulseStarter one,
but the ones I've bought more recently are different models that
have quite a long preheat timer.

I have 3 instant-start 5' fittings in the garage, due to
retrofitting Relco instant start HF ballasts which CPC used to
sell. Unfortunately, Relco later changed the ballast to preheat
whilst keeping the same part number, so that particular one is
no use for instant start anymore, and instant start ballasts
are getting harder to find.

Instant start is most common in the US, but that mostly uses
tubes with single end contacts in conjunction with a high
voltage lampholder interlocked with the supply. Since US has
to transform their mains voltage up to operate anything but the
shortest tubes, transforming it up to voltage levels capable
of instant starting is no big deal and saves on the starter.
Instant starting has never been used much outside the US, and
AFAIK, no one else uses the instant start single end contact
tubes, although ordinary tubes can also be instant-started.

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

Thanks for that Andrew.

The Tabelek electronic starter claims a 0.3 second preheat, so I'll
try that first - it's better than a couple of seconds of blinking. If
I'm still dissatisfied, I'll try one of the Philips Lighting Matchbox
ballasts - the Red range claims 0.8 s preheat on the Philips Lighting
website and, depending on the ballast, either a maximum ignition time
of 0.45s or 0.92 s, the Blue claims a maximum ignition time of 0.45
seconds or 0.5 s depending on which bit of the website you read (the
datasheet for the range, or the web pages for individual models), and
doesn't mention preheat: which is all very confusing.

Thank-you for your very interesting reply.

Sid