I've tried with a couple of 12 inch, 8 watt tubes, and have difficulty getting them to fire properly. With another circuit, more complex, pwm drive like the 555 circuit that has been discussed on here, same problem. Tried it with 2 of them, same result. Tried another, bigger transformer, same. These tubes were manufactured by Crompton.
If I could, I'd get one or two of the salvage tubes & try them first.
Amanda[ Parent ]
Do you mean a straight tube, or the Compact Fluorescent style? I can't see any reason why it wouldn't drive a 13W tube if it'll drive a 15W one.
BTH[ Parent ]
CFL's are a different beast altogether.
These inverter circuits are for running the normal fluorescent tubes which have 2 pins each end for the filament. The standard housing will have a starter, and a ballast transformer.
If it was just the tube with no ballast, it should have 4 pins on the base (ie. start and end connection for 2 separate filaments).
BTH [ Parent ]
Now I'm confused.
To me, a cfl is a fluoro tube and integrated ballast (actually a sophisticated inverter) that has a base the same as a normal incandescant bulb.
All these inverter circuits should drive a ccfl just fine.
p.s. The bulb looks like the old style CFL bulb but without any of the base. Two staight tubes with a little passageway between the tubes. Oh, and the bulb is non-polarized.[ Parent ]
Going by your description of the ballast choke, I'd say the tube should work just fine with any of the inverters published.
I made a post about a week back, "heads up", in which I advised that a small resistor in series with the tube may be necessary with some inverters.
It is unfortunate that the term "electronic ballast" has come into common use. The mass produced cfl lamps have a rectifier and inverter built into them, and called "electronic ballast". I have seen these lamps run off an inverter from 12 volts, but you have to rectify the high voltage, and regulate it to about 350 volts.
