howdy folks, i've been eyeing the Qianshun/Glow Object offerings as a backup plan for my SOX lamps, to keep on hand should my existing Advance ballasts fail, and just out of curiosity to compare them to more traditional SOX equipment. i haven't been able to track down any of the Philips-brand Electronic SOX ballasts and these are the only other electronic offering i could find.

i looked at all the listings and pictures, and all the ballasts say 220-240V operation, so if i do end up getting one i'll need to track down a step-up transformer. no big deal, Digi-Key and Mouser have reputable hard-wire ones that won't break the bank.

all that being said, anyone have any experience running these ballasts on any of their SOX lamps? what do you think and how do they hold up to a regular old magnetic ballast? any input is appreciated and thanks in advance for sharing!

If you are from North America, I am pretty sure that you can use 220-240V lighting equipment from split phase 240V 60Hz AC if it is available in your house.

If you are from North America, I am pretty sure that you can use 220-240V lighting equipment from split phase 240V 60Hz AC if it is available in your house.

unfortunately my home doesn't have any 240V breakers; everything is 120V past the main breaker. so a step-up transformer will have to do for me.

It's rare to have a home with a 120v only service nowadays. They existed during the early days with 120v 30A and 60A services but even by the 1950s, 120v/240v split phase services were the norm as high power appliances such as stove, dryer, and air conditioner would typically require 240v to reduce the current consumption.

Now you probably might now have a 240v outlet, or at least an easily accessible one but most homes do have 240v available at the breaker panel.

unfortunately my home doesn't have any 240V breakers; everything is 120V past the main breaker. so a step-up transformer will have to do for me.

For SOX lamps we are talking about relatively minute powers, even for the largest ones. So a simple small step-up transformer will be sufficient. It is very straightforward.

It's rare to have a home with a 120v only service nowadays. They existed during the early days with 120v 30A and 60A services but even by the 1950s, 120v/240v split phase services were the norm as high power appliances such as stove, dryer, and air conditioner would typically require 240v to reduce the current consumption.

Now you probably might now have a 240v outlet, or at least an easily accessible one but most homes do have 240v available at the breaker panel.

you'd think so, but every single breaker in my home panel is a single-phase 120V breaker. the washer, dryer, and other large appliances are all plugged into standard NEMA 5-15 receptacles and run on 120V. i could probably install a proper 240V breaker and run a new line to a new receptacle somewhere, but i'm sure my housemates would not appreciate losing power for an indeterminate period of time if they don't have to, and i'm not personally keen on working on a breaker panel when it's live - i'll save that for the licensed electricians. 

i do have 220VAC receptacles available at work, but i'm not exactly looking to intertwine my personal hobby projects with work, lol 

For SOX lamps we are talking about relatively minute powers, even for the largest ones. So a simple small step-up transformer will be sufficient. It is very straightforward.

i checked out a couple YouTube videos of people measuring real volt-ampere usage for SOX lamps, and found that the average 18W SOX lamp and ballast combo pulls approximately 135 to 140VA with a power factor of around 0.84. since it's totally unknown how good the power factor is on the Glow Object ballasts, i ordered a 300VA step-up transformer off Digi-Key yesterday, which will give me some headroom. this is the one: Signal Transformer 130-OF on Digi-Key

i will definitely report back with success/failure and measurements once i have a chance to test everything out in the coming days.

Ahh that makes more sense then. I suppose you do have 240v available at the panel but like you said, if everything is wired using 120v circuits, you'll have to wire a 240v circuit.

If you do have to run 240v ballasts, especially lower power units, I think the step up transformer is a great idea.

Hopefully those ballasts have better power factor. I have a Philips Goldeye and the stock ballast in that has a terrible power factor. Terrible enough that I added a PFC capacitor to it. I think a lot of 120v HX SOX ballasts without PFC are like that.

i checked out a couple YouTube videos of people measuring real volt-ampere usage for SOX lamps, and found that the average 18W SOX lamp and ballast combo pulls approximately 135 to 140VA with a power factor of around 0.84. since it's totally unknown how good the power factor is on the Glow Object ballasts, i ordered a 300VA step-up transformer off Digi-Key yesterday, which will give me some headroom. this is the one: Signal Transformer 130-OF on Digi-Key

i will definitely report back with success/failure and measurements once i have a chance to test everything out in the coming days.

That is ridiculous. Like many people said before, do not trust the BS posted on Youtube as a source of your information, period!!

18W single choke circuit will consume 0.35A, that is just 80.5VA at 230V. OK, if you use a starter, the short circuit current will be in ~0.45A range just briefly, ~110VA, if PF uncompensated.  Adding a compensating capacitor will drop VAs considerably. Let's say you are using a crappy choke with high losses of ~12W, so system power is around 30W. VA consumed at 230V PF 0.84 will be just 36VA!

Well, if we are assuming the person on Youtube uses an electronic ballast, things will be a little different, phase shift for line current will be near zero, but poor PF is instead related to a non-sinewave current consumption. Yet if we do the math, system active power consumption is 140VA*0.84PF = ~118W. If 18W is going to the lamp, where the other 100W is dissipated then? Sure the measurements were just done incorrectly...

Having said that, it is always good to have an extra power on your transformer, but at some point you just start to waste your money....

update: i received a 35W Glow Object ballast in the mail yesterday, and promptly hooked it up to a Signal Transformer 300VA step-up transformer i bought off Digi-Key, and one of my 35W SOX lamps.

and... it works GREAT!   

some details i noticed:

• the ballast is dead quiet. even with my ear right next to it, i couldn't hear any 60Hz hum
• the initial strike of the lamp is much "cleaner" in a sense... there isn't a noticeable blue flash as the strike occurs like with my magnetic SOX ballasts
• the efficiency and current draw are significantly improved. with my 35W SOX magnetic ballasts, i would never get below about 77W total (0.83-or-so power factor) due to ballast losses, but this Glow Object ballast draws just 39W total and has an average 0.95 power factor
• this doesn't really affect the functionality, but just an added bonus - the Glow Object ballast is slim and lightweight as compared to the typical magnetic ballast

so far, just from my initial test run, it's a winner. i'm very pleased with its performance.

i've attached some power meter readings from a magnetic ballast and the Glow Object ballast for everyone to see.

i'll definitely be performing more tests in the future, and i have an 18W ballast on the way from Glow Object as well to run my SOX-E 18W lamps.

Something is wrong with the first photo. 18W lamp + ballast combo can not consume 78W of active power!

Something is wrong with the first photo. 18W lamp + ballast combo can not consume 78W of active power!

that's because i was using one of my 35W SOX lamps with a 35W Glow Object ballast as i noted. i don't have the 18W Glow Object ballast yet.

But I still can not believe magnetic ballast is that bad to consume 78W when driving 35W lamp. That means efficiency is below 50% which is crazy!

Isn't that one of the reasons why SOX stuff never really got as popular in the USA? In Yurp, we can run it with a run of the mill choke in series (and an ignitor) which means you get a reasonably good efficiency, depending on copper losses. In the USA you need to jack up the voltage to get it to run reliably and as far as i know, leak transformers are pretty bad when it comes to efficiency.

I'll measure power consumption of my 90w SOX with leak transformer style ballast, see how efficient it is, if i don't forget it. 2 days till summer vacation so might not get around to it. 

But I still can not believe magnetic ballast is that bad to consume 78W when driving 35W lamp. That means efficiency is below 50% which is crazy!

That is quite common with magnetic SOX ballasts, they use to be very lossy.
The main reason is the high OCV necessary for the startup (to ensure ignition and then fast glow to arc transition so fast electrode warmup): With 300V OCV or so the apparent power on the secondary is in 150VA range. And the losses of any transformer always come as a percentage from this figure, not from the real power. Yes, the percentage depends on the losses vs cost and mass trade off, but still if the high OCV imposes high apparent power, it becomes extremely hard to lower the losses.
Some ignitors (those acting like an oscilator boosting the voltage for the glow-to-arc transition) may allow the main ballast OCV to become lower, so allow for lower VA's so lower losses, but still the minimum OCV will be in the 200V ballpark, so about 100VA baseline for the losses.

HF electronic ballasts use resonance to boost the voltage, there the efficiency is the greatest when the lamp voltage is about similar to the inverter output (which is about 75V when the inverter is fed by 120VAC and it is a simple halfbridge), so very close to the normal lamp operation (also in the 70-ish V). It decreases with higher voltage boost (during startup, when the electrodes are cold), but that is not that big deal as normally this takes just barely few seconds, so even when the efficiency becomes really low, it has no real impact to the overall energy use economy.