Spoilsport...

One of my friends works as a fire investigator, and one time he showed me this burnt up 2x4 troffer from a site. I took a look at it and it looked like it was from the 60s or 70s (had Y-slot lampholders) and it looked like it was retrofitted to T8 electronic from T12 RS. The electronic ballast ballast was spliced into the old ballast wiring which was stranded. The wiring was also a bit of a mess with multiple splices. Generally in a conversion I like to terminate the new ballast directly to the lampholders like in a factory fixture but most people don't due to time and money.

Anyway everything on it was burnt to a nice crisp and everything plastic was melted, one of the lampholders was also burnt away completely too. 

Not sure if the ballast was the cause but it didn't look too budged. Plus electronic ballasts generally don't fail in such a violent manner.

I like to fuse my 2xF40 RS ballasts individually at 1A. It shouldn't trip under normal use but if the ballast starts to act up, you have a better chance of it just blowing the fuse.

I noticed Dollar Tree has the 3 way LED bulbs now, for $1.25. They’re the warm white too, which I prefer. I picked up a couple to try.

It’s nice to finally see AFFORDABLE 3 way LED bulbs, since most, are $6-7 each at other stores.

 I've witnessed a fair few fluorescent ballasts go up in a BIG cloud of smoke ! Many years ago a classrooom in school had one release a big cloud of yellow smoke !     We left and finished class out in the courtyard !

  This one was well done when I bought the fixture : https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5203&pos=82&pid=163404

Bring back the 1960's, I say. Grew up in London then and it was brilliant, the place isn't the same any more 

Going out and about in public with no electronic devices on my person. (My watch is not battery powered.)

Ahh, the good old days before the turn of this century

I've never had a ballast blow but I've seen a couple do it . I have had a capacitor release the magic  smoke inside my Norelco 180w SOX streetlight . Also , back in my teen years , I wired a 50w HPS ballast improperly causing the lamp to grenade into schrapnel all over my bed room !!  I wasn't allowed to mess with lights in my room after that one !

Oops   

Never had a problem here, the good old magnetic lumps here were built to last, I've known them still work after 50 years half submerged in water in the base of a lamp post 

In my area I’ve noticed several houses where commercial grade post top fixtures were being used in people’s yards.

There are a few GE Town and Country style fixtures at some houses… I’ve seen black ones and white ones, both HPS and MV.

There are a few houses in my neighborhood that have the GE space ship looking ones, I believe they’re all MV. One seems to have disappeared, and one sadly got the glass broken after hurricane Irma and got replaced with either an LED or CFL bucket light on a post top adapter.

There’s one house on the back way to the next town, and it has two GE Town and Country LED post tops on either side of the gate. There used to be a lot of wooden poles going down the driveway… it’s a very long driveway… and those had MH yardblasters on them.

That house sold a few months ago and I recently noticed all of those yardblasters got replaced with more GE post tops matching the ones at the gate! I was really surprised they would do that.

It must’ve cost a fortune? And where would the buy them? You can’t just order them at the home center or hardware store. lol

One of my neighbors a few doors down also has a black post top HPS fixture in their back yard by the lake… I haven’t seen it on in years though. Not sure how old it is, but it was likely installed by the previous owner or two. They used to also have an ITT cobra fixture somewhere in the yard… I remember it being put out for trash when I was a kid… I saw it riding my bike one day, of course my dad said “you are NOT taking that home.” 😂

For some reason they're not very popular. If you'd have been local, i'd gladly accept a couple. They're surprisingly hard to find here in *any* size or power rating.
I just found an 18w T8 in a garage fixture with remote ballast, very happy with that, but the total of 3000k halophosphate lamps i've encountered for sale in a full year, is 4 (including the garage lamp, excluding the Crompton ones that appear to have an additional phosphor).

That's in contrast to the dozens of 4000k ones i could've gotten, but i don't care much about those...

 All of my clearbanders consist of /DX MV , /D HPS & /C Metal Halide .