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troubleshooting flourescent lights

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oldrustycars

03-17-2006 11:15:56




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i had my high output shoplights just "go out" yesterday. were on for a while, then just out. power going to the fixture. they"re the only HO lights i have, so i cant switch bulbs like a usually do to see if they"re bad. how can i tell if its the ballast or the bulbs? thanks.




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oldrustycars

03-18-2006 20:00:31




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to oldrustycars, 03-17-2006 11:15:56  
the ballast ground screw makes sense, as i was using my little sandblaster on a car parked right under the fixture. stupid rambler resists all attempts at getting it on the road! i"ll check that first thing in then morning. thanks, as always, for all the help.



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Kevin Bismark

03-17-2006 19:18:18




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to oldrustycars, 03-17-2006 11:15:56  
either bulbs or a ballast, worked on hundreds of them and they will work just fine with no connection to ground with the ballast, found them hung with nylon tie wraps in outside lights befor, pretty hard to pop a fuse if you have a short with no ground but if you have a good ballast and good lamps it should light up, I would try the lamps first, you can alway's use them anyway, and if they don't work, do the ballast..

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buickanddeere

03-21-2006 14:52:46




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 ground Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to Kevin Bismark, 03-17-2006 19:18:18  
A ballast fixture and lights will operate at times with a chassis ground at earth when they won"t light up wihtout. I wouldn"t want to have anything to do with a light fixture that was floating wihtout being grounded. It"s a fire and personal health hazard. Doesn"t matter if it"s 20 ft in the air either.



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Kevin Bismark

03-23-2006 17:14:21




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 Re: ground Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to buickanddeere, 03-21-2006 14:52:46  
Yup, you run across lots of stuff in the electrical buisness, I gave up being shocked at what I find a long time ago, yesterday I was in a place looking at something and ended up grabbing onto a piece of 1/2 inch EMT, what do you know, it wasn't grounded and it was energized, I was standing in a puddle of water in a garage at the time, almost didn't get off it. One of the other good ones, the maintence guy at a place had hooked up a duct heater, 50 amp 3 phase 208 volt, with the federal pacific stab lock panel, there was a fault in the heater, don't know what it was because it was all gone, burned up the flexible conduit he had pulled across the bar joists, and pretty much melted down the panel as well, then it took out the fuses in the main service for that panel, needless to say there was no equipment grounding conduction pulled in that flexible conduit. Work safe.
Kevin

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Charles (in GA)

03-17-2006 16:36:58




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to oldrustycars, 03-17-2006 11:15:56  
Loosen the ballast retaining screw, and re tighen it, so as to get a good clean ground from the ballast housing to the metal of the light fixture. Then make sure the incoming power ground wire is well grounded to a clean connection on the light fixture also. Found this info in a troubleshooting sheet I got at Home Depot. Didn't believe it would help, but it did fix the problem.

Apparently most flo light problems are not the ballast, but bad connections and or grounds.

Charles

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LumbrJakMan

03-17-2006 15:50:01




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to oldrustycars, 03-17-2006 11:15:56  
Rusty, Take the cover off the fixture and expose the Ballast. Read the Output Voltage of the ballast and make a note of it. Get a Voltage Meter, Set for the scale to be above the Output voltage and read for Voltage on the oputput wires going to the Tombstones. I cant imagine they all went bad at once. I have seen Flourescents loose there ground before and not work. I also know if just one of the wires going to the tombstone comes loose it will affect them . They are a "STAB" connection to the Tombstone most likely and they may appear to be in, but Not all the way . This should get you up and running ....

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van robinson

03-17-2006 22:38:29




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to LumbrJakMan, 03-17-2006 15:50:01  
be careful sticking a volt meter to the tombstones or output side of an HO ballast. The voltage may be over 1000volts. A lot of the times the ballast will not list the output voltage. I am an electrician and watched one of my working partners light up a voltmeter doing this.



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shannon from ohio

03-19-2006 07:27:09




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 Re: troubleshooting flourescent lights in reply to van robinson, 03-17-2006 22:38:29  
And i'll bet the meter wasn't even equipped with a light was it?? Watch them high voltages with the HO ballasts!!



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