That funny and pretty cool to see. Have you reached out to him before?

I have avoided the restores in my area. One focuses on furniture, and no mercury or non-specalty incandescent lamps at any locations. I did find some interesting things at the restore up north in McHenry, but selection is not great. My biggest gripe with resore are their prices in general are at or just below retail price. There is a massive independent thrift store by me that I like to frequent and they sell anything you could imagine.

I carried around things related to my interest, I became known for it in a comedic good way. The only problem is all my lamps which are good to hold are rare or I only have one of them. I used F40T12s as a stick, when I found them while walking with my friends.
Here, if you do something random again and again, you get known for it in a comedic way. I still remember the guy who used ram sticks as a scale in school, it became a trend and the highest capacity would win.

I went to 3 ReStores yesterday (Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Bellflower) and they were all pretty much like what you described. Modern residential lamps and fixtures from large donations, and mostly LED bulbs. Some incs but modern ones from just before the ban. Bought nothing. Total bust. Last score was a few weeks ago at another ReStore in Oxnard and got a bunch of NOS Luxor incandescent bulbs. Scored a few new fluorescent and HID lamps at others.

This has been my experience with a lot of Restores now too. The two in my city have been like this since ~2019 or so. A lot of the lamps (mostly LED) they're trying to sell aren't any less expensive than they would be to buy new. As of now, I've found that Restores in smaller towns and cities usually tend to have more interesting stuff.

You should've checked out the Fanimation Fan Museum in Zionsville.

Hey Dave,

I will say that you are an important piece of the community and I speak for most if not all of us that you are liked here. Activity here has just slowed down since when I joined back in 2020. Everyone's just gotten busy, definitely the case for me. I haven't had the chance to post or talk here for a good long while. Unfortunately life gets in the way but we still enjoy the presence of you and other members on the site.

Spent the past couple days visiting a college out in Indiana, figuring that all out now. Also had a chance to check out the Studebaker museum in Indiana, really cool place.

Went to two Restores on Sunday, they didn't have much in terms of HID and the fluorescent stuff that was there was some PL lamps and some modern Philips F30T12/SW lamps. Had a bunch of newish incandescents, LEDs and a lot of residential grade fixtures, including some cheap two lamp F25T8 strips.

Thank you Dez and Medved! I'll have a look tonight (I'll unscrew the ballast from its mount and have a look that way.)

The ballast looks to be in perfect shape honestly. Coils look pristine and there is no corrosion anywhere. Also, upon disconnecting the ignitor hot/neutral leads, what I do with those wires? Do I just put electrical tape on them for insulation or do I reconnect them to another place on the circuit? It seems to me that the wires going out of the fitting and through the wall go to the ignitor first, and then only later the ballast. Though I will have to confirm this when I disassemble it a tad later. Thank you again!! 

Ignitor has 3 leads: One goes to Neutral (internally connected to a resistor inseries with the HF choke), one to the lamp (the one with the pulse capacitor) and one to the tap on the ballast winding (the one with the sidac). There is nothing on the ignitor that should go anywhere else.
In a fixture could be two other components though: A power factor correction capacitor connected parallel to the mains input and sometimes the photocell (one lead to Neutral, one to the input power and one towards the ballast Line input terminal). For a basic ignitor functionality the Neutral wire needs to be on its place, the other two (the Lamp and Tap wires) could be swapoed and the ignitor will still work, just a bit less reliably (a bit lower peak voltage, less favorable pulse polarity, but still should be able to ignite a good lamp at least when cold)
From your description it looks like someone had messed up the wiring...


The capacitor has no effect on the lamp itself, its function is only to reduce the reactive power the lamp circuit imposes to the mains wiring (reactive power does not transfer any real power, it is just a chunk of energy bouncing between the ballast coil and the mains and back, just unnecessarily straining the distribution network in the process; but a single fixture is of no problem, real problem would be many uncompensated fixtures doing that together). So you may leave it out, I would even recommend that until you make the fixture working.

And regarding the meter and ignitor: Indeed, the HV pulses are extremely dangerous for a meter. And even no fuse may protect against it: There are no high currents that may trip the fuse, just high voltages causing a dielectric breakdown. And moreover the HV pulses could be the thing that may also keep an already blown fuse still conductive (by igniting an arc in it), so even when some excessive currents would be involved, the ignitor action would prevent the fuse doing its job.

Not exactly.
Usually I bring lightbulbs with me to school, just to keep myself entertained. When people see them they always ask me "Why?"
And the issue is that I don't really know what to tell them except for "I just like it, it's my hobby and interest."
Thankfully, they accept me for who I am, and they don't laugh.
(Nobody really even cares about me or notices my existence in school except for 2 of my friends.)