Author Topic: What to do with a CFL ballast  (Read 544 times)
HIDLad001
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What to do with a CFL ballast « on: July 29, 2022, 12:34:40 PM » Author: HIDLad001
I salvaged the ballast from a TCP 20w CFL with a cracked tube, despite being brand new. I will probably end up removing the starting capacitor and replacing it with a glow bottle starter. What kinds of fluorescent lamps would I be able to run with it without blowing something up?

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Re: What to do with a CFL ballast « Reply #1 on: July 30, 2022, 12:42:46 AM » Author: Medved
These ballast circuits need the "starting capacitor" always connected, otherwise they do not work (they provide resonance both as a feedback for the ballast operation, as well as to generate the high starting voltages), so it can not be removed. Yes, if a capacitor is within the starter, it may do the job, but many cheap starters do not have any. Plus it also gas to be reasonably good electrical quality at the high frequecy, many ceramics used for rf suppression are (often intentionally) of rather high hf losses, these would get fried in a hf circuit.

So such bsllast may be usable for T5 tubes, it won't be thar far off from e.g. 21W T5...
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Re: What to do with a CFL ballast « Reply #2 on: July 30, 2022, 08:29:50 AM » Author: HIDLad001
So if I extracted the glow bottle from a starter, and connected it in parallel with the capacitor, then it should work.
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Re: What to do with a CFL ballast « Reply #3 on: August 01, 2022, 12:56:25 AM » Author: Medved
Yes, but mostly only to the extend the starter acting just as a kind of EOL protection (shorts out the resonant capacitor when the lamp does not start so prevent the ballast from overheating). In these HF resonant ballast circuit usually the lamp starts faster than the starter is warming up, so most of the time the starter will do nothing at all.

If you are sure the starter uses some film capacitor (and not a ceramic one or no capacitor at all), you don't need to disassemble the starter and utilize the starter one.

A problem may be, if the ballast uses the resonant capacitor split into two, each connected via one filament parallel to each other, or diodes parallel to the filaments to reduce the normal mode heating current. These designs use the LC as a voltage booster not only during start, but during run as well, mainly the case for "120V" CFL ballasts, using this instead of the more common voltage doubler on the mains rectification side. There the starter connection could become problematic (when the lamp dies).
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Re: What to do with a CFL ballast « Reply #4 on: August 02, 2022, 02:43:51 AM » Author: bulb_tester2009
I had removed the ballast from the EOL Osram Dulux Star, so I removed the originals that were intact on it and threw away the circuit board.
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