On Sunday, December 2, 2012 8:58:37 PM UTC, Fred wrote:

or not a link was fitted across a pair of terminals. I fitted a wire
to make the lamp maintained and found that the tube was flickering and
obviously needed replacing.

probably, I wouldnt say obviously

Regarding the kitchen, in my limited experience of fluorescent tubes,
they tend to come with white starters that blink the tube a couple of
times before the tube strikes.

Electromagnetic ballasts do, electronic ballasts dont

I read somewhere - most likely here -
that this blinking wears the tube out, so in the past I have bought

Those neon starters do reduce tube life some. I used to prefer thermal starters, or even just a starting switch instead. I'm no fan of all that flicker & flash.

Its pretty easy to add an RC time delay to a relay to make it do the starting function with no flashing. It also won't keep trying to start a dead tube.


each time I turn the light on. I put one of my green 100% electronic
starters in and the tube strikes first time but there is a hum before
it does so.

Non-issue. Worry about something important.


NT