quoting:
Are you claiming that your "ballast" has no inductor or no capacitor?
That the only device connected between the lamp and the power line is
a triac?

All I know is that the entire ballast is the size of a pack of cigarettes -
I see no cap or choke of any size.

The inductor and capacitor used in 2-lamp T12 shoplight-type L-C
ballasts can easily fit into a package the size of a pack of
cigarettes.


Is this happen to be a "lights of America" shoplite BTW? Those things pretty
much have what Vic had described (capacitor and small inductor) in series
with the lamps. There is also a triac or triac-like switching device in
these LOA ballasts that rapidly switches the preheating of the lamp
electodes, and LOA marketed this as "instant start".