Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « on: April 09, 2017, 07:09:52 AM » Author: suzukir122
What is the highest OCV 40watt magnetic rapid start ballast that you've seen as a lighting enthusiast? I'm curious to see the responses from everyone.
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	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #2 on: April 14, 2017, 03:14:43 PM » Author: DieselNut
There are some "cold temperature" ballasts with high OCV.  I would love to find one.  I imagine the EOL show is nice!
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	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #3 on: April 15, 2017, 08:11:39 AM » Author: suzukir122
I've got several of those F40 cold temp ones! The EOL show from them is also pretty impressive depending on the lamp used. A lot of those ballasts failed partially during EOL shows, unfortunately. I wonder if there are F40 rapid start ballasts that have even higher ocv than those.
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #4 on: April 15, 2017, 10:32:50 AM » Author: dor123
F40 rapid start ballast with very high OCV would be too complicated, expensive and would have huge ballast losses. Thats is way it is impractical to make an F40 rapid start ballast that have the ability to start the european krypton energy saver 36W T8s retrofits without problems.
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	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #7 on: May 02, 2017, 07:25:53 AM » Author: suzukir122
With one of my cold start ballasts, (the Magnetek Universal one, currently used in my kitchen) it actually managed to cause vacuum loss with an EOL lamp (EOL caused by no electrode filament, thanks to me) The EOL lamp was made by the company Great Value, but I'm pretty sure Great Value T12 lamps are made in a GE factory or something based on the structure of the lamp. That vacuum loss was very intense, and actually pretty quick despite being ran on a rapid start ballast. But it kinda made me wonder about the Great Value lamps internal structural strength. I also have an Advance Centium Rapid Start Electronic ballast, meant for T12, but I'm thinking about buying T8's and installing it into one of my kitchen fixtures. Not sure if running T8's on an electronic ballast would harm the ballast, but it's worth a shot. I'm also thinking about replacing the Magnetek Universal ballast in the other kitchen fixture, with another electronic rapid start ballast meant for T12's, and putting T8's into that one as well. I am absolutely not going to go completely electronic, however. Never that... and I have a plan for my living room, which requires both of my cold temp magnetic rapid start ballasts. Running Electronic ballasts in my kitchen may also be temporary, since, well, electronic ballasts. I'm simply not a fan of electronic ballasts. lol
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #9 on: January 06, 2020, 10:10:39 PM » Author: suzukir122
I recently moved out of that apartment I mentioned in my previous post... and I no longer have fluorescent fixtures in the kitchen. However, I have 4 "Sadelite" desk lamps for now. One of which I'm running 2 18w PL-L lamps using two separate PL-L magnetic HPF Rapid Start ballasts that are suitable for 18w PL-L lamps. Those apparently have 330ocv. That desk lamp looks sloppy, so I'm using it temporarily until I find something better for those PL-L 18w lamps and ballasts. The 18w lamps are obviously not intended for those desk lamps. The other 3 desk lamps contain their intended 36w lamps, but with PL-L 40w magnetic HPF Rapid Start ballasts. Those ballasts make 450ocv, and there is a bit of start up flicker each start up. Sometimes they instant start the lamps, during cold starts. With this apartment, the living room has a much higher vaulted ceiling, and an upstairs loft. So I'm using those desk lamps as up-lighting to shine on the vaulted ceiling. Not a bad idea so far. lol But yeah the highest OCV I've seen on a *smaller* magnetic Rapid Start ballast, as of now, is 450ocv lol I guess that might be as high as it gets for the Rapid Start ballasts. That's still enough for a great EOL show though depending on the type of fluorescent lamp used.
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #10 on: January 07, 2020, 04:35:48 AM » Author: Medved
Well, for a RS, the OCV is limited from the upper end in order to prevent lamps from cold starting (igniting the arc with electrodes not yet warmed up), as that would reduce the starting cycle life of the lamps. That is one of the dominant reasons why the OCV on many ballasts does not allow e.g. cold operation: Because in normal warm rooms the lamps will suffer from heavy sputtering. With installation exposed to cold you have no other choice with RS, so the extra wear is just tolerated. In fact the thinking is, there the lamps won't be started as often at high temperatures (where the cold starting risk is the greatest), so the life will remain reasonable. This is the reason, why it is not any good idea to use cold starting rated ballast on places which will never be that cold. Using the apropriate ballast with not that excessive OCV for the temperature range means the ignition really happen after the filaments are nearly fully warmed, so reduce the stress a lot. If the lamp wear does not matter, just use IS ballast instead...
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	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #11 on: January 07, 2020, 04:55:50 AM » Author: suzukir122
@Medved, I see what you're saying. I also wonder if what you described may play a role in why my PL-L 36 watt lamps have severe end blackening. (Ignition before filament heating) Or maybe the lamps require much more filament heating than what the ballasts provide. Then again, they're 36 watt lamps operating on ballasts that are intended for the 40 watt versions.
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Interests:
1. Motorcycles, Cars, Women, and Lighting (especially fluorescent)
2. Weightlifting/staying extremely athletic
3. Severe Thunderstorms of all kinds
4. Food and drinks. So gimme them bbq ribs
Lighting has ALWAYS been a passion of mine. I consider everyone on here to be a friend

	Re: Highest OCV F40 rapid start ballast « Reply #12 on: January 07, 2020, 05:30:45 AM » Author: Medved
It could be. The RS concept is extremely sensitive to the exact lamp ignition voltage at different cathode states. The optimal OCV window may seem wide at first, but it is shifting a lot with the variations like external electrical fields, temperature or differences in the exact lamp construction. So if you want to take into account some of these effects, it starts to shrinking a lot. So much, it completely disappears when some other parameter shifts (the lamp sometimes becomes surface wet and sometimes it is dry, temperature varying over wide range,...) With old argon T12 (= wery thick lamp compare to its length) the window is reasonably wide, so the RS concept was somehow usable, at least indoors. But with thin lamps (F32T8, or e.g. the SlimLines) it was not existent, so these were just designed as cold starting IS from the start (the cycle life was sacrificed for the efficacy of F32T8 or compactness of slimlines). The PL-Ls are rather thin and long, so there the window is very narrow to start with. The shape (where both ends are quite close by, so form good field) helps to make them immune towards the presence of an eventual reflector, but the humidity and dirt (resistive surface) sensitivity is still there. So I dont think these are good lamps for an RS.
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