got some tensor 13w pl lamps at a closeout sale at meijer's.
these go in the ottlite clones tensor sells.found one that does not always start.
noticed it started when i swept a flashlight across it.further testing shows if i shine the light at the base right where the tubes go in i can reliably start it.
like a sick neon indictor.
is this due to elimination of kr-85 in starters?

How old is that? The Kr-85 have half-life of 10 years, so if the starters are way older, the Beta aid does not have to be sufficient anymore (assume the dosing is kept on the minimum required for about 10 years designed shelf life), while the starter design count on it.
Or it could be an internal gas cleanup, again linked to the age of the starters.
Or it could be simply bad piece due to some manufacturing fault.

How visible light can ionise the gas inside the glow bottle of the starter?
Visible light is a non-ionizing radiation.
UV is in between the non-ionizing and ionizing radiation, and X-rays and Gamma rays are ionizing radiation.

Visible light might be enough to cause photoelectrons to be emitted from the metal parts of the starter, so will cause a lowering of the work function of the metal and thus cause ionisation to occur. All metals are to some extent photoemissive, just some are a lot better than others. Cesium is very good, thus it is used in vacuum photocells.

not sure how old these are.
i have had them a year.they are still sold in many stores.
the rest were ok except for one that was mercury starved.it worked when warm but took a lot of thrashing on the starter to get warmed up.i junked it.

the rest were ok except for one that was mercury starved.it worked when warm but took a lot of thrashing on the starter to get warmed up.i junked it.

So it could be even normal wear and related gas cleanup causing the trigger voltage to rise. All glowbottle starters are rated to be replaced with the lamp. Operating old starter with new lamp and/or new starter with old lamp mean (in the average) significant shortening of the life of the newer component. You may find many pieces working well, but the failure rate become so high, it usually mock the tube quality (so even good quality tubes yield too many system early failures)

these were unused.the starter is in the base.
i figure these are just poor quality.we shall see how long the rest last.