Welp, after a little more than a year of usage, one of my F30T12's, to my surprise, might actually be nearing a possible EOL show. A bit early, but then
again, all of my F30T12's have seen a good amount of use between now and March 2025, with frequent switching, not far from the norm. (I haven't been turning
off and on, and off and on, these lights constantly.) Even though I don't think this has anything to do with it, it's on a ballast that I mentioned in the
"What Did You Do Today Lighting Wise" thread, that I will be replacing with a Therm-O-Matic X ballast. The lamp unfortunately is one of my favorite classic Sylvania
F30T12 lamps, USA made, though 2011 vintage. It's in the right side fixture on my loft balcony, in series with an F25T12 lamp. Non etch ending is good, but
the etch ending is glowing pink, now with occasional blue flashes. Barely any end blackening yet... very, very slight grey spot end blackening, but not enough to
really notice. There is currently no "Tear Drop of Death" end blackening, but, this ending has had this slight pinkish hue for a while now, and blue flashing is
definitely a sign, especially if it reverts back to the pinkish hue, which it does... so I expect the "Tear Drop of Death" end blackening to start to show soon.
I won't change the ballast yet until that lamp burns out. Once that lamp burns out, I will replace the ballast, and I will also replace the lamp with my remaining
F30T12 Philip Alto. I expect that fixture to be MUCH brighter after this. So far out of all of my F30T12's, that is the only one that is close to EOL, from what
I can tell, though I do have another classic Sylvania with heavy classic spot end blackening, in one of my fixtures in the loft... and also, the F25T12 lamp
right next to this lamp in question, has slight spot end blackening on the non etch side. My GE Watt-Miser Warm White lamp also has slight spot end blackening on
the non etch side.
Anyways, I'll update as this lamp continues to get closer to EOL. Still fun to watch though, but a bit early, likely due to frequent switching over the past year.
Not sure if I'll get the EOL show on video, but we will see.

I haven't really seen lamps get close to EOL like that without much blackening. I do have a 2000s GE lamp that didn't seem super used, but suddenly started developing a dark black dot on one end and for some reason when you turned it off the mercury would go to that end (as it would all evaporate again when started). Maybe if I kept using it, it would do a teardrop and maybe even a clear little window!

This is currently what the lamp looks like, with pretty much no end blackening.

The ending looks a bit brighter in photo due to hertz flicker clashing with the FPS of the camera. This hertz flicker/camera FPS clash also make it appear
as if there is slight end blackening, but there is no end blackening on this ending, besides the slight spotting that I mentioned in my previous message.
The spotting is tough to see, but it's a little passed the "Sylvania" etch, right above the "LVA."

I have a F30T12 that's pretty close to EOL. It's fairly blackened and sometimes refuses to start in colder weather. I'm tempted to finish it off but I don't have a F30 fixture currently setup with a electronic ballast.

@joseph_125, all of mine fire up easily, except for maybe my Philip Altos. Those ones take the longest to start, with each start up. Not sure why.
The newest Philips Alto I installed a couple months ago, in series with an F25T12 Sylvania Super Saver, is also now the longest to start, compared to
all of the other fixtures downstairs. When I first started using those Philips Altos, this was not the case... this makes me wonder if maybe there is like,
some sort of break-in period that Philips Altos go through.
If I were to replace this lamp with my final F30T12 Philips Alto in my collection, I would assume that this fixture will also eventually have a slower
start up as well, even with my replacement ballast.
One thing I forgot to mention about this Sylvania lamp... I've noticed that when lamps are close to EOL on magnetic ballasted circuitry, the area just
passed the etch has a strong 60hz flicker. The entire lamps themselves aren't exhibiting any sort of noticeable hertz flicker, but I do wonder if that may change
as the end blackening increases.

Update: I'll keep this thread up, but it looks as if this potential EOL was a false alarm... this ending is blue now. I figured this might happen,
and I was correct. It does seem as if that slight spotting end blackening has increased just a little bit though... seems just a tad bit darker.
Other than that, there is no additional end blackening. I saw that this ending was blue yesterday, and today the ending still looks the same.
Here soon, I'll take a photo of the other F30T12 that I mentioned, that has more significant spotting end blackening. I'm also going to get my
ladder and briefly check all of the other endings of each of my F30T12's, just to see if there are any more possible signs of potential EOL from
any of them.