Since the ballasts are the typical 2 wire serial reactor ballasts, a standard superimposed ignitor should work fine with them if you really want to run pulse start metal halide lamps with them. Additionally, if you want to keep startup current down to a minimum, I recommend adding power factor correction capacitors to your fixtures as improving the power factor of your fixtures can help keep current draw and apparent power draw as low as possible. This can help minimize the possibility of your inverter tripping and can help you use one of a smaller size.

Thanks !  I have NO idea either .

@wide-lite 1000
That is a very nice lamp there, and also an interesting use of the "E" designation for an "ED" shape bulb. Maybe naming conventions changed. IDK

 Yep ! https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5200&pos=116&pid=163544

@wide-lite 1000
Are your "E" shaped lamps dimpled like the "ED" ones?

 I asked the "E" vs "ED" question back in 2019 and never got a definitive answer ! https://www.lighting-gallery.net/index.php?topic=7626.msg61829#msg61829  I own a 1970 GE 400w clear MV which is listed in the GE catalog as "E-37" and I also have several newer GE clear 400w MV which look completely identical but are listed as "ED-37" ! I also have a 1965 vintage 175w MV which looks completely identical to a newer 175w GE "ED-28" MV .

 Check out Lamptech , there's several GE catalogs on there . The "E" to "ED" change took place somewhere between 1993 and 1996 .

 Sylvania looks to have started using "ED" as early as 1982 .

Ahh I see, a ballasting problem. Magnetic RS ballasts were/are extremely common, practically all 4ft fixtures had them at one point, and many still do today. Cause the only way we could get preheat with our longer tubes on 120V was to have an HX or CWA-style autotransformer preheat ballast, and at that point you are only a couple more coils off from RS so just go all the way.

Why are RS ballasts bad for these retrofit lamps? I am guessing it is their CWA-like characteristics? Though some of the cheaper ones (like my Advance Benchlite) were pretty much just HX.

Yes, very much likely, the reason why no direct T8 substitute for F40T12 on American market may be still a significant proliferation of magnetic rapid start ballasts, obviously not very compatible with krypton filled tubes. I think Europe and neighbors mostly got rid of rapid start ballasts around early 80's migrating to preheat (for cheap) and electronic ballasts. Both won't have problems starting Kr filled T8's.

I believe the usage of the length in the model nomenclature came about in the late 1940s/early 1950s when slimline lamps were introduced. I believe during the early days of slimlines, you were able to drive a certain length lamp with different drive currents so the wattage will vary and I suspect that was the main reason why they chose using the length instead. Generally for North American lamps, FXX where XX refers to wattage is for bi-pin lamps. Lamps that use plunger based lampholders (RDC, FA8) generally have XX referring to the nominal length in inches.

I believe the F36T8 lamps aren't compatible with the more common rapid start ballasts used for F40T12 lamps here. They are however compatible with certain types of preheat ballasts. I believe lagging preheat ballasts (eg LPF single lamp F40 preheat, the lag side on a F40 Tulamp circuit) are compatible and the lamps aren't fully compatible with the leading side on the Tulamp ballasts. @WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA has done some testing on that and might be able to elaborate.

The niche compatibility for the F36T8 and the prevalence of incompatible rapid start systems probably led to the development of the rapid start only F34T12 lamp as the energy saving drop in replacement for T12. In parallel to that, a new 4ft T8 lamp with a newly designed ballast, the F32T8 was developed for applications where absolute energy savings was the goal and for new installations a sort of clean slate design were compatibility with existing equipment was dropped..

@RRK
"at his own will" is an interesting way to say it . C'mon. And of course I did not break the tube with the intentions of using the tubing for glassworking, as I had no intentions to break it at all. If I really wanted glass tubing, I obviously would have just bought it. Amazon, Ebay, or of course a dedicated glass supplier. And I would certainly buy borosilicate so I can actually do something with it without a whole darn annealing oven. Now I know not to mess around with fluorescent tubes. Whatever.

@Laurens
Disposal of the washing water (if I choose to wash it, which I probably won't) would be by evaporation outside. Of course this counts as releasing into the environment, but the mercury has to go somewhere. I did a similar thing with a broken CRT to get the phosphor. Just evaporated the water and was left with phosphor powder. IDK what I'm gonna do with it but whatever. Of course keeping contaminated phosphor in a bottle inside might not be the best idea, but better than leaving it coated with wide surface area on the inside of a tube open to the inside air.

Neon sign shops?! I never bothered even researching if there were any around here because I figured they certainly no longer exist. I wouldn't want phosphored tubing for my proposed purposes anyway.