more fun with CFLs

[dave ames]

 hey guys,

 we have seen lots of interest in the re-use of cfl's lately..this hack may come in handy when attempting to power a linear florescent tube or one of the speciality bulbs like the G24's.

 it's upsetting to try and buy a ballast for some of these things! many times we find that a replacement part is more than the whole fixture was new!

 here is a cfl that the tube broke on, but the ballast was still good.. we just added a few leads and we are good to go with a comparable rated tube or a non self ballasted G24 type tube.

 a couple of pics



add some leads onto the four "prongs"..we bent open the crimped hook connections and re crimped on some awg 18 wire and heat shrinked the connections.



powering a F24T5/830/HO tube.



it's all good fun!

WARNING: there is enough power here to KILL you!..and if that is news to you please don't do this!

cheers. dave

[dnix71]

What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. I was changing T12 40 watt tubes in an office once and left the lights on so as to not disturb the secretary working there.
The fixture was tight and my fingers made contact across both ends of a new tube trying to put it in. Since I was standing on a desk holding a glass tube, I just stood there for a minute after pulling back to make sure I still had a stable pulse. Then I turned off the lights and told the secretary she would just have to wait a minute for me to finish.

8 footers need about 750v to start. If they weren't longer than a man's reach there would be people dying changing them.

I broke a cfl like that just the other day. Bought a floor lamp for a neighbor and busted the cfl against the ceiling lifting the lamp out the door. The cfl was just a little bit taller than the light diffuser. But they have gotten cheap. Home Depot has a 12 pack of 13 watters for $20. For that price you might as well just break a new one rather than buy a ballast.  http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=100676713&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&cm_sp=BazVoice-_-RLP-_-100676713-_-x&locStoreNum=277&marketID=2   The store price I saw today was lower than the internet price.