As most of you know,  I got a Progress F30Tx light from Jimster586.  I recently replaced the 1959 ballast with a robertson that i hate to say sucks,  it gets louder as you leave it on..  WHAT I WAS WONDERING.  I was thinking about putting the vintage 1959 ballast back in the light to keep it original.  I burn the light MAYBEE 3 hours a day max,  usually alot less.  The ballast itself probably has less than 2000 hours on it as the original lamp came with the light and has virtually no end blackening.  Should I return the original ballast into the light?  I am using a GE ecolux Daylight F30T12.

I've gone both ways. I have some valuable vintage ballasts in regular service, but on the other hand, if you already have the ballast out, leave it out and keep it safe. Though if you decide to use it, you probably won't kill it. It seems that EOL lamps are really the biggest threat to ballasts, so as long as you don't leave EOL lamps on it (which I know you won't!), you probably won't hurt it. To be sure, you can use a cutout starter so that if the starter sticks, it will cut out, saving the ballast.

It is currently out.  I dont like the performance of the newer ballast.  I am seriously thinking of putting the old one back in as it would definitely be well preserved in the ballast channel vs getting all dusty on my shelf..

With Euro style ballasts there are some models known to deteriorate with use (bad plastics etc) and some which stay in good shape. The good ones (here it is especially ones made around 79-80) last pretty much forever even in heavy use

But this is ballasts that dont have wires going straight in (that can dry up), capacitor inside (that have limited life) etc

If you plan on using the original ballast , Only use the light when you or someone else is in the house , Never leave vintage fluorescent lights on unattended that havent ben updated, These old ballasts will eventually fail & could pose a fire hazard , While youre away bulbs can fail, starters can stick closed, ballast can catch fire ,

A situation like this actually happened & although they were able to save the house , All the pets inside were killed .( House caught fire due to  bad Ballast )

Its nice to have fixtures with original ballasts , I love it , I just don`t trust those old ballasts  ,

Hope this helps .

As most of you know,  I got a Progress F30Tx light from Jimster586.  I recently replaced the 1959 ballast with a robertson that i hate to say sucks,  it gets louder as you leave it on..  WHAT I WAS WONDERING.  I was thinking about putting the vintage 1959 ballast back in the light to keep it original.  I burn the light MAYBEE 3 hours a day max,  usually alot less.  The ballast itself probably has less than 2000 hours on it as the original lamp came with the light and has virtually no end blackening.  Should I return the original ballast into the light?  I am using a GE ecolux Daylight F30T12.

I agree with Vintagefluorescent here. I'd like to add that these old ballasts do not have built in thermal protection, it became a requirement for most HPF ballasts in 1969. Oddly many preheat tulamp ballasts did not have thermal protection as late as the early 80s (likely not included in the initial requirements). You can use a mid 80s or later replacement preheat ballast (I have a few from 1985 with thermal protection), also with old ballasts it may be helpful to install an inline one amp fuse and holder which will open should the ballast short out.

If you plan on using the original ballast , Only use the light when you or someone else is in the house , Never leave vintage fluorescent lights on unattended that havent ben updated, These old ballasts will eventually fail & could pose a fire hazard , While youre away bulbs can fail, starters can stick closed, ballast can catch fire ,

A situation like this actually happened & although they were able to save the house , All the pets inside were killed .( House caught fire due to  bad Ballast )

Its nice to have fixtures with original ballasts , I love it , I just don`t trust those old ballasts  ,

Hope this helps .

Quote from: dieselducy on December 07, 2012, 02:58:07 PM

As most of you know,  I got a Progress F30Tx light from Jimster586.  I recently replaced the 1959 ballast with a robertson that i hate to say sucks,  it gets louder as you leave it on..  WHAT I WAS WONDERING.  I was thinking about putting the vintage 1959 ballast back in the light to keep it original.  I burn the light MAYBEE 3 hours a day max,  usually alot less.  The ballast itself probably has less than 2000 hours on it as the original lamp came with the light and has virtually no end blackening.  Should I return the original ballast into the light?  I am using a GE ecolux Daylight F30T12.

How complex can it be to attach a klixon to the ballast's side ? There are auto reset and manual reset types, the manual reset looks perfect for this application

Here the Switch Start (Preheat) ballasts dont have tyhermal protection to this day - They are generally safe enough because they withstand stuck starters for long enough (weeks) without dangerous failure mode, and are not potted with anything flammable like tar. But the capacitors (whih are here exposed in the fixture, not inside the ballasts) do sometimes catch fire even today. Older Switch Start ballasts (up to early 70s) were made with exposed paper wrappings (not exactly like transformer though) and allthough they did withstand stuck starters quite well, they were dangerous to some extent - The fixtures with such ballasts were sometimes open back, those were not ok to install on flammable surfaces - only on concrete etc. In the 50s there was big fire that resulted from such ballast (probably a ballast internal short)

Most of my old lights have non protected ballasts and I use them regularly, without any fear yet.  Maybe I should worry, but as long as you have them in a fixture without open holes, if a fire were to start, it should be contained to the fixture.  The only ones I do kind of worry about are the ones in my barn, which are FULL of dust, but I do not leave them unattended and do not use them for long periods of time.  Cut out starters are not a 100% guarantee either.  I had an old GE "Watch Dog" that the capacitor "stuck" on and it almost overheated my old GE "Tulamp" ballast in the fixture before I noticed it.  I have had ballasts literally go up in smoke (One vintage "Tulamp" and one vintage 3 tube rapid start) and the fireworks are contained to the fixture housing.  In what I have experienced, single tube ballasts almost never fail from overheating.

DieselNut : Do you mean that in theory a stuck starter on a North American preheat 1-lamp 40W ballast will not overheat (too much) it if left that way for say 12-14 hours straight ? I bought cutout starters for a project involving such ballasts (from the 1990's) and have wondered about the capacitor shorting out in them.

If anyone is worried about the capacitor shorting out in a cutout starter, what about simply removing the capacitor from the starter? If you don't mind altering the starter, it will work fine without the capacitor.

But really, how long with a stuck starter it takes to become dangerous to the ballast on US autotransformer ballasts ? Here (240v) chokes can be left for many days without damage

It doesn't take long here. More like a number of minutes or hours. Stuck starters caused a great number of fires here! I actually witnessed the results of a tulamp fire just a few years ago in a local business.

So how about attaching a manual reset klixon straight to the ballast ? That would just cut off power if the ballast is getting hot

Certainly could. In fact, I did that years ago as an experiment! I just bought an off-the-shelf thermal fuse and hooked it up inline with the ballast next to the ballast case. A regular fuse could help, too. Select a fuse that can sustain full operating current and momentary starting current, but would blow if starting current lasted more than a minute or so.

There does not seem to be any overheating problem with single tube ballasts, only the "Tulamp" HPF type.  I have seen starters stuck in single tube fixtures for years and no overheating.