On Wed, 31 Oct 2018 09:36:29 -0700 (PDT), John-Del
wrote:

On Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 12:05:24 PM UTC-4, Look165 wrote:
Anyway, for LED you don't need aballast.

It is a resonant circuit designed for HPOT generation.

Kill it off and connct the LED directly to the mains '(w/o diodes).

You will have immediate lightning ; it is the ballast which introduces a
delay.


How many times does OP have to say he wired around the ballast and connected directly to the AC source?? He also said he switched to LEDs because his ballast was dead.

Internally, they don't connect the LED string to the AC. So first there's a rectifier, then there's an LED current control circuit of some kind. The time the LED string will be powered up will depend on the controller. O2 Micro makes a lot of controllers, and I have seen them in many LED TV supplies. There is often a short delay depending on the control IC before the string is powered up.

The 8 footers I have power up almost immediately, but perhaps the controller IC in OP's tubes delay the output until the input filter is fully charged by design. Since LEDs don't put out any significant light until they reach close to their run voltage, maybe his controller just ramps up the string slower than the one in my 8 foot tubes.

The fact that all his examples do the same tells me it's just the way it's designed and not a failure.

And once again, he DISCONNECTED the ballast and wired them directly.
I just replaced some incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs and they have a
delay like the OP describes. The new LED bulbs are the dimmable type.
I wondered if the delay is coming from a cap being charged through a
resistor. They also have an off delay similar to an incandescent. Not
exactly the same but they do dim until almost completey off and then
abruptly turn off all the way.
Eric