Flashing flourescents

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broadgage

Senior Member
Location
London, England
More likely to be failed lamps I suspect.
As a fluorescent lamp wears out, the lamp voltage steadily increases until the ballast can no longer drive it.
The ballast "tries" but the lamp wont remain lit.
 
Thanks. still haven't been to this jobsite yet. It is a municipal building and they generally change their own lamps...At least the easily accessible ones. I'm pretty sure he said he changed the lamps in the 2 affected cans.


hope to get over there Tuesday or Wednesday and troubleshoot/repair it.


Will report what I find.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
Call from customer. Haven't been to the job yet. They switch on fluorescent can lamps. 2 of them come on, off, on, off, on, then stay off. The rest of them on the circuit stay on normally.

Is this some kind of "smart ballast" troubleshooting code?

Short in ballast combined with a thermal protector if the time period is more than just seconds?

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk
 

Mr. M

Member
Location
CT
flashing fluorescents

flashing fluorescents

Went on a srvc. call for beeping and flashing fluorescents. Upon arrival the fixtures had one emergency and one 2 lamp ballast. Changed out the emergency ballast, didn't change the flashing mode. So changed out the 2 lamp ballast and lights stopped flashing, and beeping ceased. Still not sure what caused what but the customer was elated..
 
Went on a srvc. call for beeping and flashing fluorescents. Upon arrival the fixtures had one emergency and one 2 lamp ballast. Changed out the emergency ballast, didn't change the flashing mode. So changed out the 2 lamp ballast and lights stopped flashing, and beeping ceased. Still not sure what caused what but the customer was elated..

Thanks. Pretty sure they are not on an emergency ballast, there are 2 wall mounted emergency lights in the room.

I appreciate everyone's input. Will report back once I see for myself what is going on.
 

fmtjfw

Senior Member
You can also get persistent flashing by mixing t8/t12 lamps incorrectly with t12/t8 ballasts. One of our brillant:happysad: electricians did that to the fixture over the Superintendent of Schools desk.
 
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