Today I finally got up on the garage roof and took a look at the Wide-Lite . 1st I swapped the 1000w /DX MV lamp for the original clear 1000k MH lamp and now it won't even strike . Next I checked the capacitor and it's right on spec . Looks like it ate the ballast !! CRAP !!

 For those who aren't familar with my namesake , it's a 1000w Wide-Lite F-series . It's had the original potted ballast replaced with a standard multi-volt core & coil M-47/H-36 CWA unit which I scavanged from and old 1kw high bay . The present ballast is on a custom made bracket  mounted inside the original ballast can which has been cleaned of the original potting tar and original ballast/cap.  I noticed back during the winter when I tried to fire it up , the MV lamp which was installed back in Sept. 2024 in order to tone it down a bit while being used during the neighbor's son's wedding & reception would barely come out of the pink stage despite it being powered up for almost 20 minutes . I was SO hoping it wasn't a ballast...

 I have a N.O.S. Advance 1000w M-47/H-36 which will be the new replacement . Replacing a ballast in an installed HID fixture SUCKS !!

Man, that's rough.

 The issue is sitting at the peak of a metal roof and trying not to slide while attempting to change a HEAVY ballast at the same time . This used ballast has been in there for over 10 yrs. what I have to do is un wire everything and unbolt the mounting bracket and then remove both the ballast and bracket as a unit and then change it out on the ground . Then , carry everything back up to the peak and repeat the process in reverse .

Good on you for keeping that old beauty going.  What's the current tally on bulbs and ballasts so far?

Work perched on the peak of a metal roof isn't fun.  I have a little to do myself.  Would a scissor lift be an option?

 Today , the Wide-Lite finally got it's new ballast and now works perfectly again !  While I was out there , I also took a minute to get out the extension ladder and clean the glass inside and out on the RAB Area Light JR . which sits below the Wide-Lite . The Philips 50w 4k coated CMH lamp still looks decent for running D2D since Oct. 2018 ! The arc-tube does show some darkening but starts fine and seems just as bright as originally ! It's currently over 23,000 hrs !

Bought a NOS 2006 Sylvania Bourke Hill 70w HPS light and a knockdown Philips Roadflair Brp392 140w streetlight!

I’ve been cleaning and sorting my fluorescent tube collection today I will continue a little more tonight. I’m organizing them neatly into boxes, which I plan to put into my storage unit for safe keeping. I need the space back in my little shed so I’ll only keep a couple tubes there, and bring 98% of my huge collection into the storage unit. It is just a minute walk or so if I want to go get a tube anyways! So not a huge deal at all!

With slight sadness i brought my 65w color 27 back to the recycle bin. No life left in it, no matter how much current i try to force through it. Also the CFL reflector lamp that just suddenly died and a bog standard color 33 20w one.

Luckily i do now have 1 brand new 13w and 1 used 20w color 27 which work.

There was a Mazdafluor 36w 940 in the bin, contemplated taking it home - but i already have two cool white halophosphate tubes sitting around, so i ended up just leaving it.

Today was quite a nostalgic trip for me. Something very positive happened that I never thought would actually happen. I got my first fluorescent light fixtures I ever had back today, after having been lent out to my brother for a few years at this point. They still work even after all this time, one of the covers has unfortunately been dropped and cracked in the corner, but it is repairable with my hot glue gun fairly easily. I don't remember the covers being perfect to begin with, so I think this crack was probably there all along but after being dropped it probably continued cracking a little further. it is about 5 inches long or so, but luckily it has cracked in a non critical area structrually. So should be fairly easy to fix. The ballasts have rusted a little more since I had them aswell, they already were a little rusty before though so that's nothing I am worried about. The spring loaded connectors for the power cable has unfortunately broken in one, not from UV damage but rather from accidentally ripping the wire when they got uninstalled. I can just replace it with a new one and all will be good! I still have the original tubes I used to run in them laying around aswell, still in perfect condition! I badly want to install them back where they used to be, I have better light fixtures installed currently that are way higher quality, but these two have a special place in my heart despite being cheap flimsy generic fixtures. So I might re-install these during the week I just need to purchase some new mains cable. I used to have 4 of these fixtures originally, but I then converted two into a single large 4-tube fixture lol. But these two still remain, and I love them. Despite them being cheap trash picked fixtures!

Yesterday, I did a mega-fluorescent unboxing, lol. I aquired a fairly large number of old electrical cabinet lights, mainly 2 foot 18-20W ones. So I spent some time installing power cords on each one, and replacing broken sockets and such from other cabinet lights that were 15 watts and one that was 30 watts which I did not want, aside from their parts. So in total, I have 9 beautiful 18-20W fixtures now So I lined them all up after wiring them all up with a power cord each, and did a mass-fluorescent startup!

I will include a picture of my original fluorescent fixtures, and the newly aquired 2 foot fixtures below.

Today I took a roadtrip 2hrs. each way to claim a pair of Holophane 400w MV 2-lamp highbay fixtures . Saturday , I took another road trip to pickup a pair of 1000w Wide-Lite F-series Lamp/reflector housings . Bothe are missing all of the ballast equipment and mounting hdwe. Between the 2 I should be able to make one complete housing .

That’s awesome! I hope you get the high bay fixture going 400W MV is very impressively bright! Is the dual lamp thingy some sort of redundancy if one fails? Or is it always burning both bulbs?

Picked up a load of SDW-TG's at the thrift shop.


Left one at the thrift shop for the rare fellow lamp collectors here. One is going to another dutch collector. One maybe to a German collector. @Marcel1968  do you want one too?

Also found (but didn't buy) this one:



With a naming competition for the new range of CFLs, with which you can win a CD-I player!

Note the orange price sticker - it's ƒ‎ 26,95. Not taking into account inflation, that would be about 12 dollars. But 26 dollar is more realistic if you keep inflation into account.
Quite a lot of money!

Nice!!! Very nice indeed! I have one of those too, but I’d like to get a few more I’ll have to see if I can find any more this week