Hi,

You may remember me posting some questions about kitchen lighting and
also non maintained emergency lights. Here's a quick update, followed
by a new question about starters:

The bulkhead could be non-maintained or maintained depending whether
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. I don't know whether:
1. the dying tube killed the battery
2. the dying battery killed the tube
3. the tube and battery dying were entirely independent and
coincidental

I never got any further at diagnosing the problem, due to a lack of
time and round tuits.

I had an identical unit still boxed that SWMBO would not let me fit
above the stairs for aesthetic reasons, so I simply fitted that
instead.

As for the charging LED getting brighter, that was an embarrassing red
herring, which I wish I had not mentioned! The new unit's led is just
as bright. I think because the nights are darker, earlier, the led is
more noticeable than it was in the lighter summer nights.

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. I read somewhere - most likely here -
that this blinking wears the tube out, so in the past I have bought
electronic starters, which were green. These make the light go from
off to on in one go with no blinking.

Wickes sell this:
http://www.wickes.co.uk/invt/162288

It claims to have a flicker-free start and although I cannot see it
mentioned on the web site now, I am sure it used to say that it had an
electronic starter. I am sure it says this on the box too.

The starter included is not the green starter that I am familiar with.
(Ok, the green is only the plastic body and they could use any colour
of plastic for that). This starter looks a bit like an RCD as it has a
little button on the top. It is branded Osram.

I looked on the Osram web site and it says it is a resettable circuit
breaker that trips when the tube dies. Rather than have the tube
blinking like a strobe, the breaker will trip.

The curious thing is that the Osram site says it is "almost like an
electronic starter", implying that it is not an electronic starter.
Possibly someone has pointed this out to Wickes, which is why their
online description has changed?

The starter is not living up to their claims and the tube does blink
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. I have never had a hum when using an electronic starter in
any other light before. So my reason for waffling on about all this is
to ask: will it be ok to use the "proper" electronic starter in this
light fitting or is the fact that it is humming telling me something
is not quite compatible?

I notice the first review for the 5' version:
http://www.wickes.co.uk/5ft-start-fl...r/invt/162287/

says that it does not include an electronic start and does not include
instructions (neither did mine), so I am not the only one in this
situation!

One last daft question: if the starter is Osram does this mean they
make the whole fitting, or is made by someone else and the only Osram
part is the starter?

The tube supplied is 3500K, which in earlier posts I said I did not
like but actually, I have got used to it.

TIA