Fluorescent T9 Circline Light Fixtures

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NinjaPoodle
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Re: Fluorescent T9 Circline Light Fixtures

Post by NinjaPoodle »

Smucky wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 5:38 pm
NinjaPoodle wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 9:19 am
Smucky wrote: Fri Aug 29, 2025 1:26 am

"go with LEDs", you mean like these LEDs?

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It doesn't matter, you drilled holes in your antique lamps destroying them. If you would have gone with LEDs you would have to do that since they run much cooler.
I think you missed the point that most of the "bulbs" in that photo are burned out :spin:
It doesn't matter, they are still better than CFLs.
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Smucky
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Re: Fluorescent T9 Circline Light Fixtures

Post by Smucky »

Out of ideas for content. Maybe I can record turning it off and on rapidly :shrug:
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:cat:Smucky, the cat eating appendix
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Smucky
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Re: Fluorescent T9 Circline Light Fixtures

Post by Smucky »

I forgot there is the fluorescent tube in the HVAC unit I can record. The ballast is "programmed start" which means it should have three distinct stages of starting the lamp, pre-heating, ignition, and run. And indeed, when power is first applied, there is a good second before the lamp lights. So I would expect to see the filaments start to glow. But I don't :( hmmpf
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Smucky
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Re: Fluorescent T9 Circline Light Fixtures

Post by Smucky »

Felt like since I swapped the ballast, that the new one is dimmer. Even though, best I can tell it should be brighter. Ever weirder it seemed like the lights in the other rooms were brighter when I swear this fluorescent one was brighter. I was running a $5 generic lamp and was getting tired of the crappy CRI anyway so figured I'd swap it out for one of the $20 philips ones. And whoa, yea way brighter and way better CRI. Check out the spectrum, wasn't expecting to see yellow
PXL_20250904_005252719.jpg
And now my yellow fluke meter is yellow, unlike last time
PXL_20250904_010301965.jpg
Strangely the old bulb was growing a black dot on the inside, maybe from turning it off and on a bunch that one time :scaredjerk:
PXL_20250904_010138743.jpg
Before the swap, I did try to at least get some numbers to determine the "brightness". Best I could come up with was to use a small 1 volt solar panel. It reads 1.25 volts in full sun.

The highest I could get it to read with the old lamp was 1.040 volts, at the center of the lamp shade read .950. And the highest I could get using a nearby wall to reflect the light was .381 volts. The new lamp has 1.060, 1.018, and .402 for the same locations.

I'll try to compare numbers after a month or so, hopefully the brightness doesn't fade.
:cat:Smucky, the cat eating appendix