Ballasts, Shelf Life?

[jmellc]

Someone at a supply house told me years ago that fluorescent ballasts have a shelf life. I had never heard that before & didn’t think much about it.
Fast forward to now. We still use just a few fluorescent lights, replacing them as they age out. I replaced 2 ballasts last week & they didn’t work. They were at least 3 years old. Light has backup ballast too, which had appeared to still be good. But after, it no longer worked either. We weren’t about to spend for one of them so we’re getting a new light, LED flat panel. I never liked those lights much. My church had a lot of them. Good idea but they were a lot of trouble after a bit of age.

 

[ptonsparky]

Never heard of a shelf life for ballasts. Properly stored, there should be no issue. I'm sure we installed some that were well past 10 years of age. Could be we just lucked out though.

 

[synchro]

The only thing I can think of with a shelf life would be electrolytic or tantalum capacitors inside an electronic ballast. But they should last well beyond 10 years. However, the quality of such components may not be what it used to be.

 

[jmellc]

I'm just waiting for a new light now. Not worth a lot of work on this one. Plenty of other stuff to do.

 

[kwired]

The only thing I can think of with a shelf life would be electrolytic or tantalum capacitors inside an electronic ballast. But they should last well beyond 10 years. However, the quality of such components may not be what it used to be.

As we got closer to the end of new installations of magnetic ballasts I noticed most the replacements never seemed to last as long as the originals did. Might have even occasionally ran into a two ballast luminaire and the one that was still the original was still working and I was replacing a replacement.

 

[tom baker]

The only thing I can think of with a shelf life would be electrolytic or tantalum capacitors inside an electronic ballast. But they should last well beyond 10 years. However, the quality of such components may not be what it used to be.

Yes that would be my comment on caps

 

[jmellc]

As we got closer to the end of new installations of magnetic ballasts I noticed most the replacements never seemed to last as long as the originals did. Might have even occasionally ran into a two ballast luminaire and the one that was still the original was still working and I was replacing a replacement.

I have seen that years back a few times. Also saw a few renovations where old lights had been working fine for years. Moved them over a few tiles and half of them gave trouble. Just that little bit of movement......