Enjoy !!

Got the pictures taken, just got to put a collage together. It's very much a lash-up, but it works..! We'll try and put together something more permanent later, we need to get something long enough to mount the tube on, it's ideally got to be metal as the ballast specifies earthed metal within 1" of the lamp for its whole length. It works without, but there's a lot of swirling going on in the tube unless the earthed strip is there. We used a piece of wire laid alongside to test it, so we know it works.

Pictures sometime tomorrow, watch this space (well the gallery actually) 

Resodiumized the back yard.

The ballast of the 70 watt minipack that's lit the back yard for a quarter century went out this summer. To immediately deal with it I bypassed the ballast and stuck in a 75 watt LED equivalent lamp I had laying around, but I didn't view that as a permanent solution. It's on a narrow space between two gable windows so I was limited to minipacks or something that could fit if I put in a standard surface mount electrical box.

I always thought 70 watts was just too much, so I bought a 35 watt open box minipack on eBay. I kept the back of the old 70 watt due to it already being mounted and wired to the building, and someone had punched out the knockout for the outlet box on the back of the new fixture. The rest of the fixture minus the back I installed, the aside from a different thread for the cover the screws lined up perfectly. Upon applying power, I got nothing. Turned out the supplied lamp, presumably made in China but with no markings on it was DOA, probably why whoever had the fixture before returned it. I had a 1980s vintage Philips USA lamp from when the front post light was HPS (that fixture eventually fell apart) that I put in and it worked perfectly. Also have a case of six new GE Hungary lamps I got at the same time as a fixture, so I think I have an adequate supply.

I've posted several times about my cities ridiculous outdoor lighting code. Although no one ever complained about my grandfathered 70 watt fixture I'm ready to say "but I didn't replace the fixture, I just replaced the lamp and the ballast and the cover". At any rate although it doesn't meet the city's Kelvin temparature and CRI requirements it is now under the allowed lumen output for unshielded fixtures...

I also found the new gear a bit interesting. The ballast doesn't have a tap for the ignitor, which uses a transistor instead to generate the starting pulses.

I couldn't live there !!  https://www.bloomingtonmn.gov/sites/default/files/52u_exterior_light.pdf

Well, I recently went through my lamp inventory. I have a few lamps set aside to pass down to other members but most of it was re-organizing. Since the holidays are right around the corner I need to start testing / repairing decorations. I put some neon flicker bulbs to good use so yeah.

I ordered a brand new LUMEC roadfucus small 35 watt street light from the infamous "princess auto"
https://www.princessauto.com/en/4000-lumen-led-yard-road-light-with-photoelectric-eye/product/PA0009000696

Lit our 60W linear sodium lamp, he hasn't had a lighting for a while so it was overdue 

I've ordered a pair of tombstone lamp holders so that we can display our 60W SLI/H lamp properly. 

Currently in the middle of putting together a ballast board for 35W HPS/MH lamps. Got some new lampses the other day so need a way of running them   

I've just lit my new Chalwyn Far East that came this morning. 

Stepped into neon heaven while on my trip. Since past few days, I had seen over 30 neon signs! (Even in night time!) This was surprising because the only neon I saw before were either never on or broken.

I broke my original Cree 60W equivalent LED lamp.