voltage

[ceb58]

I was ask a question today which gave me pause and I would like to hear your opinions. What would be the output voltage of a electronic ballast for a 42watt 4 pin cfl lamp. I said the voltage could be in the 200+ volt range. And would it be safe to check voltage with a dig. meter? I say it would depend on the meter and if it had volt limiting capabilities.

 

[infinity]

Don't know about a 4 pin CFL, but I thought that ballasts for 4' lamps have an open voltage of about 600 volts.

 

[frenchelectrican]

AFAIK they do dish out over 500 v OCV but if this is a High HZ electroinc ballast it may be little tricky to trobleshooting unless you got DVM that can read high as 1 MHZ due some of the electronic ballast run about 40 KHZ range and need the DVM able read 1KV OCV.

But the excat OCV I don't have the chart with me.

And the type of ballast may change the numbers a little.

Merci.

Marc

 

[480sparky]

I searched Advance's Literature page, and none of it details any output voltage for any CFL ballast. Only the input voltages.

 

[frenchelectrican]

480sparky.,

Now I am at the moment due I did check online and find nothing on the online verison of the Advance company.

I did try to find troubleshooting and FAQ area came up empty on this one ( just about start swearing in French )

Merci,Marc

 

[Lcdrwalker]

On the GE site it list the OCV as low as 190 and as high as 540 for CFLs. I have seen electronic ballasts for F32T8s go up to 900. I had a foreman try to check one with an analog meter. Meter went boom. Be careful....

 

[iwire]

You would need a true RMS meter to measure the voltage of a CFL ballast due to the high frequency of the output.

 

[Rockyd]

Hi freq? They (GE) recommend being over 20Khz to get outside of the "flicker" that the is irritating to the eye. Also recommend staying outside of the 30 to 42 Khz to reduce risk of interfering with infrared devices.

Fro more specs go here.

I think the the voltage to strike is about 600v.