I have a Universal USB-1024-14 sign ballast and I was wondering if it can run 4 F24T12/HO lamps, originally I was planning on buying my F36T12/HO lamps from Granger because they were on clearance and I thought that they had 21 cases of 24 for $1.27 per lamp, but I found out they have 21 lamps for $1.27 per lamp,and its pickup only too. Anyhow, I can't find any F36T12/HO lamps at a comparable price. So I was wondering if my Universal USB-1024-14 ballast could run 4 F24T12/HO lamps despite needing atleast 10 feet of tubing according to the datasheet. If it can't, do any of you know where I can find cheap. F36T12/HO lamps at, preferably for less than $3.40 per lamp?

At one point I wired up a HPS ballast with a dead ignitor to a piezo ignitor used for BBQs and the HV pulse from it was enough to start the lamp.

It depends. Piezo generator from a lighter certainly generates a few kilovolts, so if you run wires from it to lamp electrodes, likely the burner will strike momentarily. Just clinking the intact lighter nearby the lamp will be helpless, not enough field strength I guess...

Laurens :
The culture here is different. It is very diverse, some people have preferences similar to what you describe, some entirely opposite

I can confirm that there are more people here who will call anything other than 1000 lux 6500K in their living room "bad lighting"

Those existed as far back as i can recall since young age. In the 90's that would be 160W MBFT's in a nice 5 arm chandelier (that one was in a big room of an old house), in the inbetween years that would be with grow-light size CFLs still in the same chandelier, and nowadays it is equivalent light levels with awful flat LED panels



LAB27 :
There are people with 6500K setups, both those who are excessively bright (what we have been discussing here), and who are dim to normal. The latter ones became clearly visible with the CFL boom in the early 00s and now LEDs, but they always were out there, even in the old days with plain 1x20 Fluorescents

Many people, especially in the "i want very bright light" camp, judge the quantity of light by the visible glare from the luminaire and not by the actual light levels resulting in the area. LED luminaires are at the absolute top by glare, so they always appear "good"

In road lighting there is an additional factor : LED luminaires are very highly optimized to make uniform light levels (low Delta) along a theoretical road with perfect luminaire positions

First, "lens panel" optics emit legendary amounts of glare while directing the light to achieve this uniformity (which isn't even required to see well under the light). See reaction to glare above

Second, when the terrain is not an ideal straight road and luminaire positioning is a bit ad-hoc (as it is in virtually all of Hadar for example), the pattern put out by those LEDs will cause over illuminated spots to really stand out, something which is not so obvious with HPS

@dor123 No, that's not true.
What I think is happening is that compared to previous decades, 6500k lighting has become more common indoors and in streetlights. Before it would by 2700k - 4000k indoors, and orange HPS outdoors.
The color 6500k looks brighter than other color temperatures even with same lumen rating. So even if the new LED replacements are equally as bright as incandescents, fluorescents and HPS Lamps, the color temperature makes it seem brighter.

Also: Most LED streetlights at Kiryat Ata, are brighter than the former HPS streetlights.

The HPS-LED change is also because of color. One example is a 250w HPS streetlight being replaced by a 200w 6500k LED streetlight. Even though the HPS with ~27000lm is "brighter" than the LED with ~22000lm, the color of the 6500k LED makes it seem brighter than the HPS.

what about the piezoelectric spark form a lighter? Is that strong enough?

Found it by chance on YT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYkOjaPqarU
I have admit that this modification is very interesting, although also very odd. Never seen this before.

I don't think so. The Netherlands has a culture in which people often leave their curtains open at night so you can look in. It's still as dim in the evening as it always was. The only change is that there is more variety in color temperatures.
In the incandescent and CFL times, everything was 2700k, with the odd 4000k halophosphate kitchen light visible. Today, i can see mostly 2700k, but with a bit of 3000k too, and 4000k has gotten more common. Now we also see (rarely) 6500k.

Your observation is not related to LED lighting, but to 2 other things :

1.
The cause of complaints in your example is you switching off the lighting, not the absolute light levels

2.
Many people want brighter lighting than minimum, sometimes really excessive, sometimes just somewhere above he minimum levels but reasonable. In any case, bringing 125W Mercury lanterns as example ignores 3 decades of HPS and MH inbetween

I think that the LED lighting already caused the population vision to degenerate, because it causing people to prefer brighter lighting than usual and to not seeing good with lighting that was once enough.
In the past, street lighting with <125W MV lamps was enough for safety and now it is too weak.
I can see this phenomenon at the entrance of Carmel hospital, where when I turning off part of the LED panels, most people says that the lighting is insufficient and turning them back on.
Also: Most LED streetlights at Kiryat Ata, are brighter than the former HPS streetlights.
Your opinion?