How much time your Osram Smartlux T5 and Philips Essental T5 lasts on your programmed start electronic ballasts?
The last Chinese Osram Smartlux T5 HO 54W/865 SL Chinese, lasted one year before relampping on the fixture at the low floor of my hostel and blackened very fast, and the current Chinese Philips Essential TL5 54W/865, showing slight blackening after several days only. The lamps seems to blacken during operation and not during starting, which looks exactly like the American rapid-start ballasts.
How much time your Chinese Osram and Philips T5 lamps lasts on a quality programmed start ballast?
The blackening may have been caused by the absence of a cathodic protection ring inside Philips' Chinese version of Essential.