Author Topic: FL electronic ballast.  (Read 1687 times)

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Jerry

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FL electronic ballast.
« on: November 27, 2006, 01:00:53 AM »
I picked up a couple of the electronic ballast from Lowes yesterday.


One of them works on either AC or DC. Voltage from 120 to 277 vac and 120 to 150 dc.


The name plate lable says at 120 volts that 1 F40 bulb will cause .35 amp line draw. Thats 42 watts. That means the electronic ballast is only consumming 2 watts itselft.


How do the small voltage converters in the  low voltage CFLs do in eficientcy compaired to this?


I actully conected 2 of the F40 bulbs to this ballast it it works fine.


I tryed the ballast on a 150 DC power supply. It works great and changing the polarity on the power input leads has no effect on its operation.


I us a 120 volt battery bank in my stores RE system so these ballest will work great. Along with my 120 volt DC aircompresor, grinder, vacum, drill, router, bench grinder and more.


Forget the inverter, how needs it and its losses.


Could we design one of these electronic ballast to operate the F40 bolbs from 12 volts?


                          JK TAS Jerry

« Last Edit: November 27, 2006, 01:00:53 AM by (unknown) »

zap

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Re: FL electronic ballast.
« Reply #1 on: November 26, 2006, 09:44:03 PM »
Commanda has a few posts on electronic ballasts.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/6/3/62548/82431

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2006/9/7/21944/73176


BT Humble has a circuit here

http://smallsolar.org/hardware/fluoro/circuit.htm


I remember seeing more awhile back but I can't find them now.

« Last Edit: November 26, 2006, 09:44:03 PM by zap »

Jerry

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Re: FL electronic ballast.
« Reply #2 on: November 27, 2006, 09:10:01 AM »
Thanks Zap for doing my home work and searching for me. Looks like this idea has been explored in lingth and detail.


                      JK TAS Jerry

« Last Edit: November 27, 2006, 09:10:01 AM by Jerry »

richhagen

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Re: FL electronic ballast.
« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2006, 03:47:08 PM »
Hi Jerry,


Ibedonc had posted quite a while back that he had succesfully used compact flourescent bulbs with electronic ballasts off of 120VDC as well, so I guess it makes sense that the ones for standard tubes might work as well.  The efficiency seems very attractive.  


You have that nice 120V bank, and if you can run the your 4 ft tubes off of it, it could relieve a lot of the loading from you inverter I presume, giving you more available power for tool or other usage.  Rich Hagen

« Last Edit: November 27, 2006, 03:47:08 PM by richhagen »
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