Strike and maintenance voltage for compact fluorescent lights

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broadgage

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London, England
There is no simple answer to that question I am afraid.
It varies from one manufacturer to another, and also according to age, temperature, component tolerances, and frequency and waveform.

I presume that this may be related to your other post re 110 volt festoon lighting for building sites?

In which case it is worth noting that although 110 volts is widely used on UK building sites, very few countries use 110 volt mains supplies.
120 volts is common, and I rather doubt that lamps sold for use on UK building sites are specialy manufactured, I suspect that they are primarily designed for 120 volts and not 110.

Therefore the lamp is already being used on a voltage a bit lower than the probable design voltage, this suggests that much below 110 volts may be problematic.
Most equipment is designed to tolerate from 90% to 110% of the nominal voltage.
Therefore if the lamps are designed for 110 volts they should be alright down to 99 volts.
If, as is more likely, they are actually designed for 120 volts, then they should be OK down to 108 volts, which is not much of a margin on a nominal 110 volts!

In practice most CFLs will work at lower than 90% of rated voltage, but dont count on it. Life may be reduced substantialy.

A practical test with a variable voltage supply might be helpful, prefferably at different temperatures and with both new and well used lamps.
 
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