ATP Micro

Uh oh. Just a sec.

There's a couple, do you mean the ATBX, or the ATB Micro?

How much would a new autobahn cost? You know the tiny ones in like 50 watt usually? Florida*

@HIDLad001 – It's funny how you talked about the return of incandescents and high-flow water fixtures with an upturned nose the first time around, but then switched over to accountability and how he HASN'T done that. Yes, the President does not always stick to his word, that is true. But does literally any politician, left or right? They say what the populace wants to hear in order to be elected, all of them.

Personally, I think government entities should not dictate what I can or cannot buy or use. They should stay out of my sockets and bathrooms, period. And, quite frankly, any talk/semblance of action for a cause like getting the government out of our personal lives is already something. Because the previous four administrations did just the opposite, upping regulation and government involvement in consumer affairs. So in my humble opinion, this is really not a bad outcome.

About Tylenol, yeah, RFK is a nut. But he is promoting healthy eating, and food manufacturers are set to remove Red 40 from foods by 2027/28. So it isn't all that bad. Personally, since I come from a familial background that didn't have everything they ever wanted when they wanted, my opinion is that money I personally make is money I should personally keep to myself. But, I know you disagree on that front.

Keep in mind, we support the same social causes. I am simply fiscally conservative and strictly anti-government when it comes to the regulation of consumer goods.

The topic of calculations oddly seems to be a polarizing one around here, with some people discouraging their use entirely, claiming that there is no accurate way to be able to do them at all, and they should be left only to the "professionals". I am pretty sure that is the opposite of what we want if we want anyone to be in this hobby. If you are one of those people, just know that your opinion has already been heard. Let's stay focused on the questions at hand, and not write discouraging comments.

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What we have so far:

This is the equation I have been using so far for many calculations regarding lamps and ballast characteristics:

BallastImpedance=(LampPowerFactor*sqrt(OpenCircuitVoltage^2-LampVoltage^2))/LampCurrent

This is a true equation as far as I am aware, but only when all of the following requirements are met:

1. Ballast is a purely ohmic impedance (usably true for HX or chokes, completely false for CWA)
2. Lamp voltage does not change with current (false, but usable within a small threshold)
3. Lamp distortion power factor does not change with current (false, but usable within a small threshold)

Another inaccuracy of this calculation is my use of average power factor values. I have averaged the power factor values for many different lamps to get average values for each lighting technology, and use those for calculation. But wattage-to-wattage power factor changes exist, I find this is especially problematic with metal halide. This is easy to fix, just calculate it for each lamp (pretty easy), and that is what I will be doing from now on. This still doesn't fix the other issues though.

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What we need:

1. Knowing the characteristics of CWA ballasts will be necessary if we want to be able to use them in our calculations. That would require making the resistance of the ballast into a function dependent on the load presented to the ballast.

2. We need to multiply the nominal lamp voltage by some function of lamp current, to make the voltage change based on current. This requires some knowledge of the thermal characteristics of discharge lamps, which is undoubtedly different for each lamp type.

3. We need to figure out how lamp distortion power factor changes with current. I really doubt there is a way to figure this out without just testing a bunch of lamps.

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If anyone knows anything about how to help with this, I would love to hear it. I know just getting this far is decentle useful, but I would like to go further if possible.

Thank you all! I am curious to see how this goes down...

Your reply makes you sound like a condescending, partisan idiot. Just saying... I don't exactly agree with his policies, but I also don't treat his every word with derision and certainly don't call him 'Dear Leader'...

I'm sorry, that was done in jest. I hardly ever call him names such as "Dear Leader", but I occasionally do use such names on occasions such as this when the decisions made by his cabinet and administration seem to contradict what he promised on the campaign trail (IE letting citizens choose what they want to use without government dictating what can and can not be used, such as promising to reverse the ban on incandescent lamps).

> I don't exactly agree with his policies, but I also don't treat his every word with derision

Neither do I, but a lot of the stuff he says is just simply not true, like his stance that Tylenol causes autism, when this has been disproven time and time again by the scientific community.

Anyways, I still do not want this to happen, and I hope that something ends up being done about it, whether that is done by the Man himself or someone else.

Yeah maybe. That one just… I never have even seen that light in any stage of cycling, except in 2016 I had to do a summer church camp thing there and it was lit up back there, but that was 10 years ago, so there’s to telling what stage of life that lamp was in at the time.

Could be a coincidence. Maybe every time you drove by, it was mid off-cycle, and then this time it happened to be on. I suppose an intermittently working ignitor could be the cause, but IDK if that is likely. Some lamps take really long to cycle, I have seen one that takes around a half hour to cycle off.

Or maybe it is some sort of other intermittent connection, that is possible.

So a few months ago I was driving by a church that is on my route, and I noticed something really weird. The Ael 115 on the side of it was really nice and lit up. Except, my whole life living around here, I’ve never seen it turn on. Then the next day, the light was dead. Pitch black over there like usual. I’ve seen this happen to some other fixtures in my area too, it’s really rare, but really weird. What do you guys think happens to make them stay turned on for one night but then cycle the next night?