Electronic ballast frequent failures
I’ve got a small commercial building with two offices in it. Maybe six or eight years back I was contacted by a non-profit company set up by the electric utility company to do an energy audit. They came, did it, and came up with alot of good sugestions.
One of those was to convert all the overhead florescent fixtures to a higher efficiency type using an electronic ballast and narrow T-8 tubes. They would even do the work. The price wasn’t bad and so I said go ahead. Well, the light is brighter and better, but those electronic ballasts don’t last long (a year or two) and at about $30 each, I question how much money I’m really saving on this deal. I asked at my local electric supply place the last time I bought replacement ballasts, if that is a common problem, and they said they hadn’t heard of it. It’s also a hassle because there’s probably 25 or so of the four-tube fixtures in the building, and i invariably get a call at the most inconvient time.
Anybody have any similiar experiences with these T-8 fixtures? Comments? Suggestions?
Thanks.
Replies
I've worked in two factories for a large company. Both had hundreds of T8 fluorescent fixtures from several manufacturers using several brands of lamp. I haven't seen any electronic ballast failures, but a number of magnetic ballast failures on old ballasts.
Check the following:
Being a commercial building you might have 240 volt ballasts connected to a 277 volt system or something else like that.
If you can't track down the problem yourself it's time to call an electrician. You should not have multiple ballast failures.
The company that I work for changes thousands of ballasts a year.Honeywell sells their energy management systems to schools,hospitals,and municipal buildings,and then usually hire us to do the work in our region.The biggest energy savings by far for the customer is through replacing T12 lamps and ballasts with T8's.They really do use a lot less electricity.
What brand of ballasts did you have put in ? We always use Advance ballasts and they certainly last longer than a year.One brand of ballast that didn't work well for us is Magnavox.At first we loved them because they are a real featherweight ballast,and when you're moving hundreds of them at a time it makes a difference.Working with your hands above your shoulders for 8 hrs. changing ballasts sucks to begin with, so the lighter weight helped.But they burned out so fast we were getting call backs a couple of months after they were installed.
The ballasts are always either 120v or 277v ,and if you mix them up they smoke immediately.One wiring mistake to watch for though is getting the correct ballast for the number of lamps in the fixture.You can't put a 3 lamp ballast in a 4 lamp light fixture and expect it to last.If you buy all 4 lamp ballasts and then put them in the few 2 and 3 lamp light fixtures that you have,they will light but burn out early.If we have long rows of fixtures we usually do put a 4 lamp ballast in for every other 2 lamp light fixture(then you only have to buy half as many).
Also note that like all semiconductor devices electronic ballasts are sensitive to the condition of the ground wire(ing)....