dor123
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW5rEysUd2MThis dying argon T12 40W fluorescent lamp continuously flickers on a regular preheat magnetic ballast with a glow starter, without having the glow starter trys to reignite it as usually accurs in them (like in case of air thermal starters). Why? The flickers in this video looks much slower then in reality.
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« Last Edit: May 02, 2011, 09:14:59 AM by dor123 »
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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Medved
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No more selfballasted c***
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sparkie
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| Definitely rectification going on here. One electrode has lost it's emitter so the lamp only permits current to flow in one direction, so it's only lit for one half of the AC cycle. For the other half the current usually flows through the starter which is why tubes flash on and off at EOL, but perhaps in your case the starter is also worn out so isn't activating as easily as it would normally do.
Don't leave the light on too long if it's doing this (especially if it is making a buzzing noise), rectification is a ballast killer!
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dor123
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| The starter is not worn out. Otherwise only the ends would be glow. But there is possible that this lamp rectifies the current passing it, as Only one end was black and the other wasn't. But not all lamps i seen that in a regular preheat/glow starter or even rapidstart was so (Only one end is black). But this is normal that when the lamp reaches EOL, one of the ends will be much more black then the other.
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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SuperSix
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| I've seen rectification before on switchstart lamps when the starters are wearing out. Sometimes it's the dead tube that wears the starter out and then the tube just rectifies like this one does for quite some time, sometimes it lasts for a couple of hours but can go on for weeks. I have an old starter in a fluorescent lamp in my bedroom and occasionally that doesn't preheat the cathodes quite enough and the tube starts to flicker, once that happens the starter never closes again and you have to switch it off and back on in order for the lamp to strike correctly.
This is more common on 240V lamps with semi-resonant start circuits which will normally just fail to a 50hz flickering state that can last quite some time.
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Atlas Lamps - Seeing Is Believing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/P42STUFF
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dor123
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| I don't think the starter is worn out. The only end of life mechanism of glow starters i know, is to welding their bi-metal strips together, causing them to preheat the electrodes endlessly, severally overdriven the ballast, perhaps even more then a rectification.
By the way, i saw this happens also in Canyon Haifa mall in an argon 32W T9 circline fluorescent operating in the same system, and also i saw a 50hz flickering in a US Philips neon F96T12 Alto HO T12 110W fluorescent lamp using a rapidstart magnetic ballast.
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« Last Edit: April 19, 2010, 04:59:17 AM by dor123 »
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Logged
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.
I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).
I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.
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