🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan6.022928.22542@ee.ubc.ca> 
jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.055326.2966@klic.rain.com
> keithl@klic.rain.com (Keith Lofstrom) writes:
>
>
>[ high frequency flourescents ]
Great post about Keith's experience of replacing office 
lights with electronic ballasts.

>How much are the high-frequency ballasts, power conversion 
>(60 Hz to whatever kHz)?
>
>And most of important, where do you get them? I strongly suspect the local
>lighting hardware guys are going to say 'duuuuuhhh?' when I ask for this.

I have been researching this recently. In the aquarium hobby we
sometimes get interested in fluorescent lighting and there has been a
recent thread or two in the *.aquaria groups.

I saw replacement ballasts at Lumberjack and Home Depot, two large
home improvement places. They had both the core-coil (inductor ballast-
transformer) and the equivalent electronic type. The electronic
type are about twice the cost at $48US for 2 x 40W 4ft size. (In
Keith's original post he said $36, I think).

According to one manufacturer the electronic ballasts operate at
24kHz, and drive the lamps at 92% of the light produced by 60Hz
operation. The higher frequency reduces the flicker and gives an
'apparent' increase in brightness. The colour temperature is not 
changed. This contributes to the improvement in efficiency of the
electronic types over the core-coil ballast-transformers.

For a 2 x 40W fixture the core-coil system draws 96W at 0.92 PF,
or 16W of heating in the ballast.

The electronic ballast driving 2 x 40W bulbs draws 72W at 0.98 PF.
A savings of 16% is claimed for the electronic ballast, which implies 
that each lamp consumes about 30W but I haven't confirmed this yet.

In each case these are standard lamps. There are HO and VHO
lamps too, which are not compatible with these ballasts. Their
operating current is:

STD	(standard)		0.430A
HO	(high output)		0.800A
VHO	(very high output)	1.500A

I've cross posted this to rec.aquaria so that we may share this
and any new information. Please edit out rec.aquaria if your
follow ups don't apply.

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Peter J. Stonard        +                                /^\  /^\
Grass Valley Group      +                       /^\     /   \/
Grass Valley, CA. 95945 +                     /     \ /    /  
pjs@gvgspd.gvg.tek.com  +     Fish keeper in the Sierra Foothills
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If it looks like; sounds like; quacks like; an Opinion. It's mine.