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fl inverter fyi


By deerslayer660, Section Light
Posted on Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 02:05:25 PM MST
converting a 4 foot shop light to 12 vdc

   hi again all i just removed 10  8ft shop lights from a building thats being torn down 2 of witch i droped wile removing ceiling was real bad and they fell when i touched them came unpluged and hit the floor .So i thought these would be good to make a 12 vdc light for shop so
 took the best of the two with was probly still ok and removed the ballest next i unhooked the wires from tube ends than i wound two transformers  from the previous posts on this. I was going to just install the parts right on ends of the transformers but used perf board instead i used 2 ckts one for each tube and tried
useing light as heat sink used insulators on bolth transistors and this did  not work only one tube will light and some what dimmer than normal the tube that does not light will damage its transistor afetr killing a few transistor i thought that the transformer was bad and took another that i had made that i knew was good and installed it. again tube not lighting but at least i did not blow this transistor
so i checked my ckt again for mistakes and there were none! ready to pull my hair out as a last ditch effort i removed the transistor from light housing and installed it on a seperate heatsink applied power and bolth tubes on  bright so i used a peice
of 1x4 wood screwed to light than screwed heat sink to wood now insulated from light
oh yea all this is inside light ware ballest was . light draws 3.4 amps with 40 watt tubes. running 6 hrs now with no troubles i think i will try this one more time but i will only use 1 ckt and 2- 25 watt tubes in searies to try and get amps down to around 1.8 anyone tried this? i have plenty 40watt tubes now but no 25 watt i will have to buy these so anybody that thinks this wont work let me know befor i waste
my $   oh yea i am using tip3055 transistors with install kits to light housing and wires running to perf board    george
 have fun  george
 
fl inverter fyi | 4 comments (4 topical)

Re: fl inverter fyi (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by deerslayer660 on Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 07:10:28 AM MST

 I schould have said that i left one transistor using the light housing as heat sink and one insulated with the wood if using only one ckt the light housing schould be a fine heatsink  george



Re: fl inverter fyi (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by PaulM2 on Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 04:51:38 PM MST

To run my dual 40w tube fixture it took about 8 amps with my 120vac inverter, so I'd say if you have full brightness at 3.5a you're doing good.



Re: fl inverter fyi (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by RP on Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 07:38:41 PM MST

The heatsink tab on a 3055 is electrically connected to the collector of the transistor.  Go to RadioShack and get an insulating kit for that style transistor (TO220?).  It'll consist of a paper thin electrical insulator that's a good thermal conductor and a little plastic shoulder washer and screw set that prevents the mounting screw from connecting to the tab.  With this you can mount it directly to the fixture.

Hope this helps

rp

[ Parent ]



Re: fl inverter fyi (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by deerslayer660 on Sat Mar 05, 2005 at 07:44:06 AM MST

  yea i was useing insulator kits on bolth transistors as i thought that was the problem but it did not work till i used a different heat sink

[ Parent ]


fl inverter fyi | 4 comments (4 topical)
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