Hang in there Cole...life can be difficult at times. I can relate to what you're going through, and if I didn't live on the opposite end of the country, I'd say lets get together.
I ended up living with my folks after school too, and I also didn't get the career I wanted. I married later than average, and most of my friends moved on too. My best friend from my adolescent/young adult years decided to de-friend me after I wouldn't date his sister  , and another decided that he wanted to take advantage of my generosity...unfortunately, I had to de-friend him. 
If it makes you feel any better, life is messed up in some way for all of us, and we have to wade through the swamp of life...sometimes it can be very cold and lonely.

Keep your chin up!

I wish I could offer suggestions, but 1) Everyone is different 2) I think you are not looking for advice in your post. I had a similar experience since 2009, but I will never say that it is the same because I hate it when people do that to me. I will say that the rut you are in is hard to recover from and I have doubts that I will ever get back to my old self and after being stuck for over a decade. The rut was caused by hopes and dreams dying, but after they eventually become attainable it did not fix my problems. My current therapist sees progress, and I am now starting to find joy again, so maybe. It is a rough road and I hope you find a way out of it. Just want to let you know that sympathize with you and how hard things are for you right now.

I finished it. The old red diffuser looked orange instead of red, so I decided to change it to green after cleaning. I think any flourecent sign looks better with a green difuser anyways. The camera does not do the green any justice as the legend illuminates a pretty green color. I tried to play with the manual settings on my phone, but could not capture the color. I know exit signs are not popular here, but I thought this restoration in particular was worthy of sharing as linear florescent, especially preheat seem to be a favorite amongst several other members.

I have a prescolite edge lit up next for restoration, and I need to fabricate a flourecent strip to put into it. I am thinking of using a F8T4 because a 10.5" tube will fit almost the entire length of the sign, however I was thinking about using a vintage sylvania GTE F8T5 tube. If anyone has any interest in seeing it, or a preference on what to install let me know.

Another reason I've seen for why such flicker is common on a lot of LEDs is due to the increased use of 'High Power Factor' LED drivers in fixtures and some lamps, which, unlike other LED drivers/power supplies, don't have a large smoothing capacitor on the primary side, but rather have to make up for that on the secondary (to the effect of either adding more or bigger capacitors to the secondary side), which some don't even bother with (as the capacitors can easily end up being the most expensive components in the driver). These HPF drivers have become pretty common, even in residential grade fixtures (even though PF is not a concern in most residential areas), and that's probably in part because they can be cheaper to make due to the fact that they can omit what can be one of the most expensive (and in a lot of cases, most vulnerable to heat) components in the design.

Nice job! I've always found the 2x T5 exit signs pretty neat but they're not common here. There might be a date on the old ballasts so if you still have them it's worth it to check them.

I have looked at the stamping on the old ballast and did not see anything indication a date code. The back rest of the surfaces were smooth. Attached is a picture of the stamping.

The signs housing is made out of cast aluminum, and some of the corrosion is deep. I started scrubbing with simple green and scotchbrite pads and after getting nowhere I switched to barkeepers friend, steel wool, and a stainless steel brush. After an hour of scrubbing no more progress was made and I was tired. This is as good as it is going to get.

More pictures to come later.

Nice job! I've always found the 2x T5 exit signs pretty neat but they're not common here. There might be a date on the old ballasts so if you still have them it's worth it to check them.

Hello all, I have been sitting on pictures of this McPhilben Exit sign restoration that I mostly completed a few weeks ago. I could not know any information about the sign itself anywhere so I am unsure about the age, but I am guessing that is was made after 1980, so this section seems most appropriate. If anyone out there has an old McPhilben catalog and can find the date, model number, and options that would be appreciated.

The original robertson L8 ballasts were cooked and crispy char would fall out of both of them. One of the ballasts the coil ohmed open, the other did ohmn good, but while slightly adjusting the wires It would also read open, or ohm to ground/earth. I replaced both ballasts with robertson L48 ballasts.

Electrical specs:
2x robertson L48 ballasts (original robertson L8)
2x F6T5 tubes, warm white because it is what I had on hand
2x FS5 starters, new and not pictured
Combined the sign consumes 20 watts and 0.59 power factor.

More pictures to come later.

Very good question Dor!  Such thinking would make you a good physical chemist.

The vapour pressure of a liquid is influenced by the intermolecular (or atomic) forces that exist within that element or compound.  These are characterised by the Clausius-Clapeyron equation that links the vapour pressure and temperature of different materials.

Just because a pure element has a high or low vapour pressure does not mean that its compounds will share such properties.  For instance even though both sodium and thallium metals contain bare atoms, their atomic interactions are entirely different due to their greatly differing size and electronic structure.  Sodium ions form rather weak bonds between themselves, but very strong bonds with the halogen and between their halide salts.  For thallium the inverse is true.

My knowledge is not deep enough to explain the precise electronic differences between thallium halide and sodium halide salts, I will try to research further because it is a most interesting topic.

Sorry, we don't allow discussion about banned or departed members, especially by name. The thread will be locked. If you still have any concerns please contact one of us.

What a shame... He had a lot of useful info and some masterful photos in his gallery

he has indeed sadly, as I understand it that due to Ria and Sammi leaving the site and the (quick) un-banning of Dor, he decided to also leave, and sadly he deleted all his uploads when he left, I really wish he had not done that, as that is quite damaging to the lighting community, especially for all those that put in the effort to respond in kind to his uploads with detailed comments and research findings the such like, I really wish he had decided to at least leave his gallery up so all that hard work both from himself all others that contributed to his uploads was not lost