I found this and some Phillips lamps. Is this what is commonly used in switch start circuits. If so I may get a pair and put them in my 1950's preheater, but the 32 watters start fine in the thing.





http://www.servicelighting.com/General-18541-TLD36W-54-T8-Straight-Linear-Fluorescent-Light-Bulb

Yep, this is a standard 'run of the mill' 4 foot T8 European spec tube used primarily for switch start/preheat ballasts as well as electronic HF. However it won't start on magnetic rapid start ballasts though. The 36w T8 4 footer is the most common tube used here in Australia.

I now have 2 on order ! 

What are those prices ??! Here a tube like this in the store is 10NIS which are about US 2.5$

What are those prices ??! Here a tube like this in the store is 10NIS which are about US 2.5$

In US this is rather specialty size, so "adequately" more expensive...

They are somewhat rare here, and have to come from somewhere in Europe.

Powell

Those tubes are only A$2.00 here but that is because they are common, any tubes imported from the USA to buy in Australia are much more expensive than they would be to buy in the USA. A bit like Ford F series trucks in Australia; they are fetching huge prices here now and are the only non-vintage cars to go UP in value here due to the fact they aren't bring imported in right-hand-drive now. Whereas in the USA they are far cheaper to buy.

I bought basically the same thing, only Osram, from 1000bulbs.com for much less than that as seen here. 1000bulbs.com didn't charge me a shipping surcharge like Service Lighting probably did.

They don't seem to work all that well on our preheat gear. I'd stay with regular 40 watt T-12 if you are using preheat ballasts.

@nodgen : I am tempted to order some, however my Advance preheat ballasts have an OCV of 200 V, which I think is not quite enough. If it had an OCV of around 220 V I think it would work better. I haven't decided what to do, though.

These tubes from Narva (ancient GDR manufacturer; still producing in Germany) are really quality lamps and even here expensive but to be honest better buy a lamp for some more Dollars as a cheap junky one.

Mine lit up on a single-lamp preheat ballast fine. They didn't have any trouble starting, but they didn't run as well as they could have. They flickered a bit and didn't want to stay lit. This was even worse on a two-lamp lead-lag ballast.

If you need a higher starting voltage, try hooking up an inductor as a starting compensator in series with the starter. The simplest way to do that is to connect another choke ballast in series with the starter.

Do they still flicker after a burn-in period of about 100 hours ? By flickering, do you mean something similar to rectifying ? Was it annoying to the point that you abandoned them ? These questions will help me make my decisions. Thanks in advance.

Mine lit up on a single-lamp preheat ballast fine. They didn't have any trouble starting, but they didn't run as well as they could have. They flickered a bit and didn't want to stay lit. This was even worse on a two-lamp lead-lag ballast.

They don't like the lead section as much...
And don't forget, then F36T8 are designed for OCV of 230V and an inductive ballasting impedance.

If you need a higher starting voltage, try hooking up an inductor as a starting compensator in series with the starter. The simplest way to do that is to connect another choke ballast in series with the starter.

The starting compensator does not increase the ignition voltage of the ballast (the higher voltage is present only across the starter, not the lamp), but only increase the preheat current in lead ballasts

Do they still flicker after a burn-in period of about 100 hours ? By flickering, do you mean something similar to rectifying ? Was it annoying to the point that you abandoned them ? These questions will help me make my decisions. Thanks in advance.

To be honest, I only ran them for about 25 hours. After that time, they still flickered. The best way I can describe it is that the lamp was unstable. Until it was warm, it would go out every few seconds and restart. Even after it was warm, it would pulsate a little. It wasn't bad like an EOL rectifying lamp. Still, I wouldn't want to run these lamps on a USA-style preheat ballast in a permanent installation.

If I have some time, I will hook them up again and try to video the effect. I don't know how well a video camera will record it, but I can try.

Thanks, Medved and nogden.

Medved : That is what I thought. In North America, an OCV of 200 V is sufficient for 40 W T12 lamps, so the autotransformer is rarely configured to give higher. In Europe, the OCV is the same as line voltage (first 220 V and then 230 V) and doesn't hurt T12 lamps. Then came the 36 W T8 lamps, which need a higher OCV due to a reduced diameter, and 230 V is sufficient for this. Since the 36 W T8 lamp never made it in great quantity in North America, and that T12 lamps continued to be used all these years, 200 V of OCV is still sufficient, and ballast manufacturers never modified them for higher OCV. Now, out-of-the-mainstream people like most of us on LG have incompatibility issues when using the 36 W T8 lamps in North American gear. Oh well, at least we tried.

nogden : Don't go through the trouble of making a video just for me. I can very well imagine what is the behaviour by your description. I have an F15T8 that does that from time to time, and a restart usually fixes it. However, this situation is an incompatibility... Thanks again for the info.