In article ,
Larry Jaques wrote:

Are they really causing problems in fluor fixtures?

Large installations get nasty-grams from the power company. That's rare
at the home installation scale, but not impossible. Depending how things
are coupled and designed, the (electrical) noise thrown off can affect
other systems that want or assume "clean" power. And (again, usually
more of an issue on large installations, or ones with load metering) you
can run into being limited on how many fixtures you can hang off a
circuit due to poor power factor (which goes along with high distortion)
causing the fixture's VA to be far larger than its wattage - and you
have to size the wiring for the VA.

In most home setups none of this matters enough to worry too much about,
but I'm still fairly confident that my 0.99 power factor GE replacement
ballasts really are better ballasts than the 0.5 PF ones that some of
the cheap lights I've bought have. From the right source, they don't
even cost much more. But trying to buy a fixture with a specific ballast
is a real pain in the wallet (or information that's not provided and
needs to be hunted down) much of the time.

Going back earlier in the thread, the electrical distortion has nearly
nothing to do with the audible noise a fixture may make. Look for an "A"
sound rating if that's your concern, and avoid the old-style magnetic
ballasts.

--
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