"2 WDG. XFRMR" may stand for a huge range of ballasts from PerfektStart to CWA... This really does not define what your ballast is

Depending on how you paint it, do what's needed to prevent paint or solvent from getting to the terminal bushings or flowing into the capacitor

This screenshot shows my city, Saint George, Utah in the 1950s. You can see some top mount LPS looking fixtures in the foreground and some Form 109 fixtures in the background. Who makes those top mount fixtures?

Good to know. the ballast type in mine is one of those 2 WDG. XFRMR ballasts. I asked if these can be painted cause I want to make it look a bit like either a matte grey or light red capacitor that were used in street lights of the era.

The resistor is not essential for the capacitor operation, but depending on the circuit where the capacitor is used, it may provide wanted features :

 - Discharge the capacitor to prevent a shock if you touch its terminals later

 - Prevent a situation where a charged capacitor is reconnected to line voltage in reverse polarity (it is random, depending n the moment when you connected it), which will make 2x the inrush current and 2x the arcing respectively

 - Prevent a situation where such inrush current is going through a lamp (in CWA and similar circuits)

So long as the resistor is at its nominal value, it is ok for now. (There have been cases where those resistors eventually burn out)

Prevent the paint and solvents from entering into the capacitor. In metal can capacitors this mean the terminal bushings. In plastic capacitors this means all case openings, like all around the cap, along the wires etc

Of course inverter AC is more efficient than fixed speed compressor units.
Once the room is cooled to the desired temperature the compressor just runs slowly to maintain the temperature instead of running at full speed on and off every few minutes.
This really is pretty basic stuff and should be obvious.
Think of driving a car: you don't keep flooring the accelerator and then suddenly let right off only to repeat this sequence a few seconds later to maintain roughly the same speed. If you imagine the poor fuel comsumption this would give then this corresponds to the similar reduced efficiency of fixed speed AC units in most situations.

Hello, I am back again with questions about a capacitor that I just purchased. it is a 30 uF capacitor. Should I reuse the original resistor that came off the old capacitor or is it not necessary. Also, should I paint the capacitor or is that gonna destroy it?

Thanks for reading!

At the HVAC Hub discord server, I asked this question, and they saying that this is true, but I don't understand how.
I only know that in on/off A/C the compressors always works at 100% speed and turned on/off, and in inverter A/C, the compressor changes its speed.

@WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
Very interesting, I have never heard of those!

Do these lamps use a 700-series phosphor?
https://www.amazon.com/Philips-281618-Fluorescent-Lumens-Phosphors/dp/B008VJCVFO
Recent datasheets claim the use of a 800-series phosphor but older datasheets do show the use of a 700-series phosphor. Being USA made, they might be old enough to still have the 700-series phosphor, although I am unsure.

@Multisubject, After reading some Advance Catalogs, I have seen that they did list some 480V 60hz only series reactor ballasts for 35W, 55W, and 90W SOX low pressure sodium lamps.

For the 35W and 55W lamps, the 480V 60Hz reactor ballast designed for them is part number 71A0440. For the 480V 60Hz reactor ballast for 90W SOX low pressure sodium lamps, the ballast part number is 71A0540.

From those particular ballasts, I am sure that the 480V line voltage alone was just enough to ignite the lamps.