T5 fixtures

[thomas Dundon]

Hung a t5 fixture in a friends shop .The rest of the fixtures in the shop are 400 watt mh. when you turn on the switch that turns the t5 on the stero he has in his shop goes crazy static .After doing a little research find out it would do this on am not fm cause they sell a filter to pick up am.turn the switch off radio works fine any ideas. thanks

 

[stevebea]

Hung a t5 fixture in a friends shop .The rest of the fixtures in the shop are 400 watt mh. when you turn on the switch that turns the t5 on the stero he has in his shop goes crazy static .After doing a little research find out it would do this on am not fm cause they sell a filter to pick up am.turn the switch off radio works fine any ideas. thanks

Sounds like RFI from the high frequency ballast.

 

[hurk27]

This is going to be a problem for old timers who wish to still listen to AM radio, the newer T-8 and T-5 with electronic ballast light the lamps with a 20kz voltage and it will drive a AM radio nuts, I have had very little to none in trying to eliminate this RFI, as it produces half octaves all the way down into the AM radio band, using an unbalance shielded coax to install a long wire or Di-pole can lower the RFI by increasing the signal from the station but if they are station hoppers it will still drive them nuts until they tune in a very strong station, one Garage with T-5's I relocated the antenna about 150' away from the garage and it still had no problem receiving the RFI, but it was much lower and he was able to tune in his favorite local station with a little back ground buzzing.

This will be a problem to those who wish to upgrade to higher efficient lighting.

 

[thomas Dundon]

Talked to a lighting rep he told me theres got to be a cable next to the light whip picking up interference with the radio.He said nothing to be run near the lights with in 6 or 7 ft.I didnt wire the shop i was just putting this light up. went by there this evening found a cable feeding 2 ceiling fans and the switch 4 the fan is fead off a recp on the same ckt as the one the radio is on turned the fans off radio worked just great.Now just have to feed the fans from some where else.Looks like they would tell you this on the light box or put a sticker on it so you know..