fluooresent light

inkspot · Mar 19, 2013

replaced fluoresent light in family room with a new one, new one causes snow on tv, old one didnt old one 2 round tubed new one 4 48" more light with the smaller bulbs which i understand the large tubes are obslete thanks for any help

JMOR · Mar 19, 2013

(quoted from post at 10:37:59 03/19/13) replaced fluoresent light in family room with a new one, new one causes snow on tv, old one didnt old one 2 round tubed new one 4 48" more light with the smaller bulbs which i understand the large tubes are obslete thanks for any help

ew high efficiency, electronic ballast instead of old transformer/magnetic type & they operate at higher frequency....TV picks it up. welcome to the Greenie's world.

JD Seller · Mar 19, 2013

Welcome to the great new world of high voltage florescent lights. They are more efficient but they create an electrical interference that makes radios/TV about useless.

You are supposed to be using cable TV and digital storage for your music. Us old school guys get screwed by the new stuff.

As for the large tube lights and fixtures, I can still buy them around me. I refuse to install the new ones. I have good working lights. The electric saved will never pay for the new fixtures. Plus if you figure the heat generated as a credit to heating your room/building the old ones are not that inefficient. You do not need the lights as much in the summer. So in the winter when you need more light you also need heat.

Just another tree hugger no common sense idea. Makes them fell good about doing nothing. Kind of like the ads for unplugging cell phone chargers. It would take mine (when not charging) 1500 hours to use a kilo watt of energy.

circus · Mar 19, 2013

I bought eight 4" fluorescent fixtures which matched my 8" fixtures. They saved electricity by being half as bright. Had to replace every ballast to match the 8"er brightness. Isn"t easy finding 20 year old ballast"s but beats installing twice as many fixtures.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 19, 2013

Just bought some of the old type 48" for the shop the other day. Still available, but not everybody carries them. Old ones were cheaper than the new ones, but the bulbs are getting higher. I will still use the old ones as long as they are available. Basically no different in the long run, just another way to fleece the buying public.

Sparktrician · Mar 19, 2013

The new ballasts are electronic. They will and do cause issues as you describe. As far as light output, there are many different ballasts and lamps. Different wattage and lumen colors make a huge difference. The new t8 and t5's are better than the t12 stuff.....just have to have the right components for the application.......the big box stores are not the place to get the "good" stuff.....usually.

fixerupper · Mar 19, 2013

After I've put T5's in the new shop I want to get rid of the rest of the T12's on the farm as fast as I can. New shop has four-six tube 54 watt light fixtures with mirror reflective backing for a total of 24 tubes. Old shop is approximately the same square footage and it has a total of 24 of the 48" T12's that are in fixtures that came out of a school thirty years ago. When I leave the new shop and step into the old shop it seems dark there. There is no comparison in the available light.

I'm not an electrical mathematician by any means, but by my figures 54X24=1296 Watts of usage in the new shop. 40X24=960 watts of usage in the old shop. So the new shop is using more electricity by my uneducated figures, but there is at least twice the light hands down.

The T5 fixtures in the new shop are commercial grade and cost about $120 apiece so they aren't cheap but they give out a heck of a lot of light. Jim

mkirsch · Mar 20, 2013

The interference is because the light fixture and TV are on the same circuit.

fluooresent light

inkspot

Member

JMOR

Well-known Member

JD Seller

Well-known Member

circus

Member

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member

Sparktrician

Member

fixerupper

Well-known Member

mkirsch

Well-known Member

Similar threads