I'm trying to get a 240cm long 85w lamp running - Marcel generously gave one to me. He runs them on an 80-something watt electronic driver and i've seen this specific lamp running, but i'm trying to get one working with whatever i have sitting around.
I've been trying to fool a 2x 36w electronic driver into running - and i actually got the lamp running for a few seconds but the system i use to fool the driver into running (putting a resistor in place of the missing filaments) does not work properly. Works for Philips drivers, not for the Osram i'm currently trying. Somehow it just keeps on dumping current through the 'fake filament' resistor or the little light bulb i used until either starts to smoke. Philips just gently glows a 6,3v 500mA lamp.

I have no success in running it on 2x 36/40w chokes parallel, nor with a 100w (meant for almost 1a of current for 200cm long sun tanning lamps), nor from a 50/80w HPL-N choke. In either case it flickers and the ends glow up but does not run.
I'm starting to think these 85w 178v lamps were not supposed to run from 220/230v mains via just a choke ballast - but rather 380/400v. On 230v, just too little voltage difference between mains and the 178v running voltage of this type of lamp. Is this correct?

EDIT
seems to be a 85w RS lamp intended for starterless operation. In the attachment the wiring diagram for it according to the 1965 catalog. I assume the ballast is something that steps up the voltage. I couldn't read the RS on the etch, it's almost gone.

Try to leave middle filaments connection on the ballast open. These usually are not checked by lamp presence/EOL circuit. It all depends on the ballast topology of course, some variants run 2x36W lamps in parallel, so won't run one single long lamp at all. Somewhat crappy looking modern Chinese Wonder Philips Certalume of mine is really omnivorous in this regard, will try to drive pretty much everything from single 18W T8 to 18W SOX to 2X36 to your long tube at 320 milliamps)

 

As for running high-voltage tubes on low mains our British friends seems to use that old series-resonance LC leading ballast trick, probably can squeeze to run 178V lamp at 240V mains stable. Also a way to drive long high-voltage T5's off 230V mains at 50Hz off-label.

I agree with @RRK. The smallest ratio I have seen between mains voltage and lamp voltage in choke-ballasted fluorescent lamps is 1.8 (mains is 1.8x running voltage), not that I have looked super hard.

The ballast this is meant for almost certainly stepped up the voltage, or used a choke at a higher supply voltage. 178V*1.8=320V, which would be under the 380/400V supply category.

As RRK also said, having a leading ballast would certainly help. I personally have been able to achieve a voltage ratio of just 1.2, though it might be possible to go even lower. 178V*1.2=213V, so that should work fine on 230V (with a correctly selected capacitor and choke of course).

Selecting those values might be difficult. I don't have the full specs for this lamp, and even if I did my calculator is sometimes inaccurate.