I bought five Homebase fluorescent strip lamps a year or two back, a
couple of months back the ballast in one exploded with a big bang and
clouds of acrid, PVC smelling smoke; the same's just happened to a
second.

Anyone else had this? They are 5' 58W single strips.


--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

On Wed, 28 May 2008 18:11:25 +0100, bof wrote:

I bought five Homebase fluorescent strip lamps a year or two back, a
couple of months back the ballast in one exploded with a big bang and
clouds of acrid, PVC smelling smoke; the same's just happened to a
second.

2 out of 5 and fairly close together is grounds enough, in my book, for
them all to be returned as "not fit for purpose". Always assuming that
your mains supply is within tolerance max allowable is about 254v.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 May 2008 18:11:25 +0100, bof wrote:

I bought five Homebase fluorescent strip lamps a year or two back, a
couple of months back the ballast in one exploded with a big bang and
clouds of acrid, PVC smelling smoke; the same's just happened to a
second.

2 out of 5 and fairly close together is grounds enough, in my book, for
them all to be returned as "not fit for purpose". Always assuming that
your mains supply is within tolerance max allowable is about 254v.

After a year or 2?


NT

On Wed, 28 May 2008 15:29:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

2 out of 5 and fairly close together is grounds enough, in my book, for
them all to be returned as "not fit for purpose". Always assuming that
your mains supply is within tolerance max allowable is about 254v.

After a year or 2?

It boils down to the "reasonable man" test. Would a reasonable man expect
a light fitting to fail after 2 years or use or 10? I've got florry light
fittings here that are probably 20 or 30 years old they still work. Ones I
fitted maybe 8 years ago are also fine. Not Homebase ones mind, came from
CEF made by Tamlite it says on the side.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 May 2008 15:29:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

2 out of 5 and fairly close together is grounds enough, in my book, for
them all to be returned as "not fit for purpose". Always assuming that
your mains supply is within tolerance max allowable is about 254v.

After a year or 2?

It boils down to the "reasonable man" test. Would a reasonable man expect
a light fitting to fail after 2 years or use or 10? I've got florry light
fittings here that are probably 20 or 30 years old they still work. Ones I
fitted maybe 8 years ago are also fine. Not Homebase ones mind, came from
CEF made by Tamlite it says on the side.

I'm not sure thats a question one could answer with any certainty.

For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.


NT

In message
,
writes
Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 28 May 2008 15:29:22 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

2 out of 5 and fairly close together is grounds enough, in my book, for
them all to be returned as "not fit for purpose". Always assuming that
your mains supply is within tolerance max allowable is about 254v.

After a year or 2?

It boils down to the "reasonable man" test. Would a reasonable man expect
a light fitting to fail after 2 years or use or 10? I've got florry light
fittings here that are probably 20 or 30 years old they still work. Ones I
fitted maybe 8 years ago are also fine. Not Homebase ones mind, came from
CEF made by Tamlite it says on the side.

I'm not sure thats a question one could answer with any certainty.

For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.

Yep these were both electronic.


--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

In article
,
wrote:
For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.

Not if you include starters and tube life. And buy good quality electronic
ones.

--
*Indian Driver - Smoke signals only*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

bof write:

Yep these were both electronic.

Right... its just another electronic appliance.


Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
wrote:

For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.

Not if you include starters and tube life. And buy good quality electronic
ones.

Tube life depends on how theyre started. Glowstarters dont behave
well in this respect, but thermal starters do better than electronic
ballasts. Shame theyre so hard to find today. A time delay relay
could be used for the same result.

Quality counts of course, but doesnt come close to giving equal
reliability. You've got a chunk of iron wound with thickish copper
wire, which is inherently immune to most failure modes, and gives
over a century life expectancy, versus a small electronic circuit,
that no matter how well built cant come anywhere close
reliability-wise.


NT

In article ,
bof writes:
In message
,
writes
For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.

Yep these were both electronic.

Out of curiosity, what make/model?
Are they in a particularly warm area (e.g. my loft would be
unsuitable for electronic ballasts as it gets too hot)?

At work, we have thousands of office fluorescent lamps with
electronic ballasts. There's one guy who seems to spend half
his time replacing failed electronic ballasts in these.

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

In message , Andrew Gabriel
writes
In article ,
bof writes:
In message
,
writes
For the OP, magnetic ballasts are a lot more reliable than
electronic.

Yep these were both electronic.

Out of curiosity, what make/model?

Sorry can't say now as it went back to HomeBase.


Are they in a particularly warm area (e.g. my loft would be
unsuitable for electronic ballasts as it gets too hot)?

Nope, it's a cool dry basement and they're stood off about 8mm from the
ceiling.



At work, we have thousands of office fluorescent lamps with
electronic ballasts. There's one guy who seems to spend half
his time replacing failed electronic ballasts in these.

Do they actually fail with a bang and smoke, or just fail? both of mine
went bang and melted:

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/bofphoto/b19223cb.jpg

from memory the previous one failed at the same part of the ballast.



--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

On Fri, 30 May 2008 09:44:12 +0100, bof wrote:

Out of curiosity, what make/model?

Sorry can't say now as it went back to HomeBase.

Don't you 3 more that are yet to explode?

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article ,
bof writes:
At work, we have thousands of office fluorescent lamps with
electronic ballasts. There's one guy who seems to spend half
his time replacing failed electronic ballasts in these.

Do they actually fail with a bang and smoke, or just fail? both of mine
went bang and melted:

Don't know. I suspect they get replaced because the maintenance
guys see the light has gone out.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h222/bofphoto/b19223cb.jpg

from memory the previous one failed at the same part of the ballast.

I can't tell which part of yours failed -- you'd have to remove
the cover. The ones I see mostly seem to be the HF transformer
has burned out and is a charred lump. I would imagine it smelled
when doing this. This may be a secondary effect, resulting from
a switching transistor shorting, or could be due to excessive
secondary voltage and insulation breakdown triggered by a dead
tube and the ballast failing to detect this and shutdown.
These units will all be about 7 years old now.

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

In message et, Dave
Liquorice writes
On Fri, 30 May 2008 09:44:12 +0100, bof wrote:

Out of curiosity, what make/model?

Sorry can't say now as it went back to HomeBase.

Don't you 3 more that are yet to explode?

That's the main reason for posting here, I was wondering if I was just
being unlucky or there was a systemic fault.

I'd have though if my 40% was typical there'd have been some ME TOO or
AOL replies.

--
bof at bof dot me dot uk

In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
At work, we have thousands of office fluorescent lamps with
electronic ballasts. There's one guy who seems to spend half
his time replacing failed electronic ballasts in these.

'The Bill' set has a large number of fluorescent overhead lights - many
electronic ballasts and dimmable. (Those long walking talking shots
showing the entire set mean 'film' lighting just isn't possible - so
practical lights are used) And I've not known one fail. I've got a few at
home - Osram ballasts and dimmable - and again non has failed. Despite
being on for long periods. They are, however, well cooled. The other
florries I have around the house which are non electronic - workshop and
cellar - seem all to have blackened ends to the tubes and regularly
failing starters. And tubes, come to that. But they are commercial
fittings.

--
*Virtual reality is its own reward*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"Dave Plowman (News)" writes:
In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
At work, we have thousands of office fluorescent lamps with
electronic ballasts. There's one guy who seems to spend half
his time replacing failed electronic ballasts in these.

'The Bill' set has a large number of fluorescent overhead lights - many
electronic ballasts and dimmable. (Those long walking talking shots
showing the entire set mean 'film' lighting just isn't possible - so
practical lights are used) And I've not known one fail. I've got a few at
home - Osram ballasts and dimmable - and again non has failed. Despite

Osram is a good make, but not cheap.
I would guess the Homebase ones are probably some far easterm
make I've never heard of -- I just can't see them putting
Osram (or Tridonic, or Philips, etc) electronic ballasts in.
The fittings would be too expensive for their target market
by the time their normal markup was added.

being on for long periods. They are, however, well cooled. The other
florries I have around the house which are non electronic - workshop and
cellar - seem all to have blackened ends to the tubes and regularly
failing starters. And tubes, come to that. But they are commercial
fittings.

Sounds like you have mismatched tubes/starters/ballasts, or grotty
tubes. That's not normal. Starters in particular should hardly
ever fail in residential use where they aren't left trying to
start dead tubes for weeks on end.

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

On Fri, 30 May 2008 11:43:26 +0100, bof wrote:

Don't you 3 more that are yet to explode?

That's the main reason for posting here, I was wondering if I was just
being unlucky or there was a systemic fault.

Got to admit that 2/5 with the same fault is odd and the lack of AOL
response also a bit odd. Sort of makes me wonder if there is something
"odd" about your supply, fast high peaks that damage/stress bits of
silicon that a magnetic ballast wouldn't even see.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Fri, 30 May 2008 21:51:56 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Fri, 30 May 2008 11:43:26 +0100, bof wrote:

Don't you 3 more that are yet to explode?

That's the main reason for posting here, I was wondering if I was just
being unlucky or there was a systemic fault.

Got to admit that 2/5 with the same fault is odd and the lack of AOL
response also a bit odd. Sort of makes me wonder if there is something
"odd" about your supply, fast high peaks that damage/stress bits of
silicon that a magnetic ballast wouldn't even see.

Well, yes / no.

Solid state semiconductor ballasts are dodgy.

The less you pay for them the dodgier they are.

If you are prepared to pay 50 x the DIY shed prices they are totally
reliable and a delight (*) to work with.

(*) Weedy pun, I know.

Derek