Almost all custodial closets are one double lamp T-5 fixture. Less than 3 years old on all.
Any idea on the brand and model on the ballast inside? I wonder if it's some no-name China crap. See if you can get in touch with the ballast manufacturer or fixture manufacturer and ask the application engineering if it utilizes inrush current limiting. The contacts used in in-wall sensor relays are usually not the heavy duty silver oxide contacts used on manual switches, lighting contactors or motor starters.
That would be an option to add some wiremold to the ceiling and put a motion there... I don't need to have a switch accessible, especially in restrooms. The objective now is to be hands off for transfer of germs. Automatic flushers, faucets and dryers - And now the newer buildings no doors. Heaven help people when they get their first germ and it sends them to the hospital. But I digress....
That Lutron setup uses a battery powered ceiling sensor with the receiver going into where the switch motion sensor currently sits which obviously avoids wiring changes. Ideal would be blank face relay box with receiver and a wireless transmitter for remote mounting. I am not sure if they make such a thing though. The Lutron setup was for convenience of adding a remote sensor without pulling wires, not for avoiding vandals but hiding it behind a thermostat cage. You can't affect the functionality without breaching the box. the "vandal resistant one". Well I dunno about scratching into the lens, marker attack and such.
Unless the contact are really crap, how does this happen? Have a citation or reference for this?
Sure.
In-Rush Current
When a lighting system is energized,
a momentary surge of current occurs called “in-rush”.
This current must be limited so that it does not harm
auxiliary lighting controls. Most electronic ballasts rated
at <20% THD contain a passive front end inductor that
typically results in lower levels of in-rush. Ballasts that
have <10% THD typically use active power factor
correction and, unless limiting circuitry is included, can
have 40 amps or more of in-rush current. This may
damage mechanical switches and contacts. In-rush
current should be considered when designing or retro-
fitting a lighting system. Zero crossing controls
eliminate field issues due to higher inrush current on
<10% THD products. Be sure ballast meet NEMA 410
Standard for in-rush current. Also refer to ANSI C82.11
Information retrieved from
http://assets.sylvania.com/assets/d...last.f7347b9a-4ccd-412b-bdf0-69968ee0a7cb.pdf
Discussing the bolded section: that stuff is essentially no longer available. Those are older electronic ballasts that weighed pounds a piece. Those used a steel core choke. Copper wire as well as freight from China costs money so there's an incentive to move away from that technology.
Two other reliable sources that explore this concern:
https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2012/jan/compact-fluorescent-tribulations
https://www.intermatic.com/-/media/...-photo-control-longevity-in-led-lighting.ashx
But in-line dimming is highly common with household LED bulbs. Dimmers control power delivery by varying degrees of delay before switching-on each half cycle. To reduce buzzing from the dimmer and the ballast, as well as reducing stress on dimmer components, many LED bulbs have a resistor on the input of the ballast, so dimmable LED bulbs is sometimes the easy way around to reducing contact damage but their utmost concern is to prevent the LED ballast from producing audible buzzing when used with a dimmer.
See the resistors on left side? Higher wattage power supplies like a T8 ballast may use a more sophisticated approach like zero crossing detection while CFLs, LED wall packs, some fluorescent and LED ballasts not meant for in-line triac dimming might not bother with in-rush issues. Household LED bulbs are designed to be cheap up-front and they're expected to have poor durability with some only rated to last only 10,000 hours but they have their place.
Those low endurance LED products are done for in 13-14 months in continuous use but get great calendar year life on motion detector controlled places with low occupancy hours especially utility closets and such.
