Love this.
The ballasts should be fine. I thought you meant the linear pl13, not the folded ones like these.

Thanks! I still haven't made the labels yet (they're gonna be printed on aluminum foil so they'll last).

Oh gosh one of those would never fit lol. Yeah these are the more common PL13s with GX23-2 bases. If I were to use straight lamps, I could probably cram PL7s in here as the longest lamps and it would be a tight fit. PL5s would fit nicely but be way too dim. These PL13s pack a good punch at 900 lumens each. I'm getting the light of a 100W incandescent with less heat (well, more than I thought though lol). The lamps are 5000K Halco brand lamps. I LOVE the color of these things. A nice crisp snow white color.

Wow, you've got the "quad" PL13s. Are they preheat, pardon my ignorance?

Yep the 2-pin ones are preheat. the four pin ones are for electronic programmed start but you could take two of the pins and connect a starter between them like with a bi-pin lamp and create an external starter preheat PL lamp instead of internal starter. I do have some electronic PL ballasts but the preheat ones don't work on programmed start since you need four pins.

I had a Lights of America electronic-ballasted jelly-jar light that took a standard preheat PL13 lamp but was electronic instant-start! I never got to see how it would have behaved with a spent lamp since the "ballast" quit. It was pretty sensitive though (the photocell that is).

LOA made a lot of neat "cheats" back in the day. You could hook up an IS ballast to a preheat PL but you'd probably fry the glowbottle lol.

Actually, no, it's lamp still works on preheat in a screw-in adapter unit.

I mean like a real IS ballast not the LOA one. Does the LOA one still let the lamp preheat or does it instant-start it? IIRC, LOA fixtures use "ballasts" similar to ones in battery powered lanterns. I forget what they're called. Trent would know...

It would instant-start like any other electronic CFL, if that's what you're wondering. The LOA 4' shoplights...now THOSE are a different story. Those basically have a 14/15/20 watt choke with a capacitor and electronic starter. Somebody like Trent or Don would be able to explain it better. Those things go through lamps kinda quickly too. They will, however, still fully light a spent lamp that has an intact electrode but no emitter that would otherwise dim-glow on HPF RS or rectify on LPF RS, though the spent lamp will act kinda violently.

Yeah it's resonant start then (that's the term I was looking for) not true instant start.

I don't think it is, the resonant-start CFLs light in two brightness "steps" when new and as they age act like a true rapid start. I have one that's so knackered it does nothing for a full second, then lights at the electrodes for another whole second, then rapid-starts. It's this one: http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2335&pos=5&pid=111799

Nice! Yeah the PL-13s produce quite a bit of heat.