Very interesting fixture, seems posh, I really beg you to do the same teardown and repair if possible for the battery-operated ballast, that one seems to be the most interesting one to me. If you can't repair nor replace the battery, you can try to mimic it using a bench PSU, just to check power levels when running on battery.
That is a module from a linear trunking system, e.g. Trilux LinearLine. They are supplied in long lengths with pre-configured 3-phase wiring loom. You select the phase using the grey slide connectors on the module, then plug it into the main trunking run. So, no onsite wiring needed, just hang the trunking at (say 2m centres) and connect power to one end. Then plug in the modules.
I worked for a company back in the day that did nothing but florescent lighting in stores. There were stores where I installed full cases of 277v ballasts in the ceiling (often on a 14' wooden ladder in a busy store) without killing the power. There were the old style, heavy ballasts too. Those were the days.
The link/switch option is when the fitting is used as an Emergency Light for power failure known as a "Maintained" (always on) or non maintained (only on when the power goes off) The link in a non maintained fitting will be connected to a power fail relay which will bring the inverter on when the mains vacates. Your examples are an older version because it not only uses NiCad's, but the MOSFETS are jelly bean size. The new ones are all surface mount and normally fail because the electro' caps cook. They can be fixed, but the phenolic boards cook as well. Better to replace the ballast than leave slowly carbon creating PCB's in operation 🙂 As a side note, the SMD FET's in the later units are a GREAT source of prototyping. Have many in use, and the ballasts are free if you ask nicely. Great content as always 👍 Cheers Pete' New Zealand.
The Philips "HF Performer" is their budget cost ballast, built to the lowest cost possible and compete with other cheap ballasts from Osram, Tridonic, Magnetek, etc. Typical for these budget ballasts is series wiring, so they cannot properly control each tube separately. They made other models with much better performance, but these were usually for the commercial specification market, like high rise buildings, where performance, efficiency, lamp life, etc were extremely important. . Note that electronic ballasts slightly under-run the tube, since HF operation gives about 10% increase in efficacy. Instead of more light they chose to save a bit of power.
The only electronic ballast that I saw and it runs the tubes separately is Osram Quicktronic Proffessional. Also HF-P is not their cheapest ballast, HF Basic or HF Essential is the cheapest
@@mernokimuvek Ballasts like that are in one of the shops im my city. The lamps are operating 24/7 and some of them are so dim that they are barely visible and some of them glow purple.
@@q3dev That happens when the phosphor in the tube absorbs the mercury and the light comes from argon and krypton. I have a lamp like that and I use it for decoration and experiments.
POZOR! Another great video :D lol When I had a quick start electronic ballast FL Tube in my kitchen (the 3rd fitting in the space of 1 year!) I had enough. I took it apart to find an inductor at the end of the board had completely burnt out with that lovely burnt electronics smell. I gutted the fitting and bought an LED tube, the type that has live one end and neutral the other. Still working 5 years later though at dark when you turn it off, clearly some LEDs are ready for their end as you can see obvious dark spots as they all fade out. Still, more reliable than 2 electronic and 1 magnetic ballast fittings I have had in the past. Always a pleasure to see how these thing work, truly 'the magic lamp' :D x
Back in 2014 at the work I had at that time, I used to replace hundreds of fluorescent tubes each month. In few places they had electronic ballast dual tube light fixtures, and the rest were iron core type. The electronic ones used to eat the tubes at higher rate than the usual type. And I got the fixture working by replacing one tube, but didn't last long. I had to replace both tubes for better longevity of the light.
I really love fluorescent tubes and I have a collection of them. You should actually try this ballast together with both T8 and T12 65w tubes to see how it differs the waveform and specs because due to different gas filling T12 tubes can be much different
You should fo and look around the local toxic trash center, they always have a room dedicated to fluorescent tubes, in my are that is the number one place where I get all my rare tubes, and you will find some 65w tubes there I can guarantee it, especially people are converting to led trash, many old and good equipment gets trashed.
The switch connected between terminals 3 and 4 of the battery backup unit is a momentary type for testing - it simulates mains failure. And yes, these backup inverters run the tube with cold cathodes, shortening tube life.
For best tube life, slower is always better. This allows the filaments to get properly warm, reducing sputtering of the emissive paste coating. The flickering start with glow starter is a byproduct of it opening at random point in the mains cycle. If it happens near peak of sinewave, lamp starts first go. If at any other point, lamp may not strike so it re-tries again after another short preheat. In cold temperatures, striking voltage needs to be higher, so you may get many blinks before luck occurs to hit right at voltage peak.
@@johncoops6897Thank you for exaplanation of the flickering effect. I just had an idea to make some hybrid circuit with inductor, starter and triac swithching to eliminate that issue)
I have recently purchased the older copper ballast from one store, which was lying with him for past 12 years. They are hard to find and great for testing power factors (energy meter testing).
I have some fixtures from "beghelli" (same brand as that emergency inverter) and i really like them, the older versions had some issues with the mosfets, but the most recent are working at least for 10 years by now, i compared the most recent with the typical iron core ballast and its day to night diference, the electronic ballast has a >0.9pf, it draws less power than the power stated on the lamps (almost half compared to the same tubes on a iron ballast), the lamps strikes without flicker and within a second or two, the light is flicker-less, and makes the light more white rather than blue/green. As far as i remember is possible to increase the efficiency of the tubes by increasing the driving frequency, if im not mistaken this ballasts i have run at around 10khz or so. As a side note, i switched to boring led tubes were the light is on more than half of the day...
I put 3 of these lights in my barn last weekend. Light is extremely bright. They were given to me, as they were replaced by LEDs. But still, working light, why not.
I've seen electronic ballast fittings cycle on and off while preheating. Usually, they do it with EOL tubes but eventually it will happen with new tubes as well. I have heard it's due to failing capacitor/s.
@@sergepetrov8598 That has nothing to do with how the tubes are run on an electronic ballast. A typical electronic ballast here has an open circuit voltage of 450-600V.
Actually, both tubes have their own inductor and capacitor. Usually you can not simply run discharge lamps in parallel because they will have slightly different striking voltages and one strikes first.
in the UK they have effectively banned fluorescent tubes: once the supply of stock is gone, that is it, new fluorescent tubes can no longer be made. So it's pretty much LED all the way now.
@@DiodeGoneWild No, they were for offices and similar lighting applications. They look slightly blue near a 6500K tube but simply white when only the same 12000K tubes are used.
Not a fan of those designs, done plenty of commercial electrical maintenance and these don't last compared to an iron core style. If it's not the caps that dry out it's the transistors that cook themselves. Also having the lamps in series makes it not worth retro converting to leds. At least with some led drivers I can wind the power down to give longevity.
But LED is boring, i do not care about their higher efficiency. Plasma light sources (fluorescent, high pressure mercury vapor, metal halide, low pressure sodium, high pressure sodium lamps and low pressure noble gas signs) are the best.
@@mernokimuvek i don't think you understood my comment, i said fluorescent having 90 lumens/watt while LED the being the latest technology is only about 10% better
Very interesting fixture, seems posh, I really beg you to do the same teardown and repair if possible for the battery-operated ballast, that one seems to be the most interesting one to me. If you can't repair nor replace the battery, you can try to mimic it using a bench PSU, just to check power levels when running on battery.
That is a module from a linear trunking system, e.g. Trilux LinearLine. They are supplied in long lengths with pre-configured 3-phase wiring loom. You select the phase using the grey slide connectors on the module, then plug it into the main trunking run.
So, no onsite wiring needed, just hang the trunking at (say 2m centres) and connect power to one end. Then plug in the modules.
Thanks for another video! I always love to watch them! And I'd like to see the comparison between the different ballast types.
I worked for a company back in the day that did nothing but florescent lighting in stores. There were stores where I installed full cases of 277v ballasts in the ceiling (often on a 14' wooden ladder in a busy store) without killing the power. There were the old style, heavy ballasts too. Those were the days.
I love your cat's comments! She is awesome!
The link/switch option is when the fitting is used as an Emergency Light for power failure known as a "Maintained" (always on) or non maintained (only on when the power goes off) The link in a non maintained fitting will be connected to a power fail relay which will bring the inverter on when the mains vacates. Your examples are an older version because it not only uses NiCad's, but the MOSFETS are jelly bean size. The new ones are all surface mount and normally fail because the electro' caps cook. They can be fixed, but the phenolic boards cook as well. Better to replace the ballast than leave slowly carbon creating PCB's in operation 🙂
As a side note, the SMD FET's in the later units are a GREAT source of prototyping. Have many in use, and the ballasts are free if you ask nicely.
Great content as always 👍
Cheers
Pete' New Zealand.
The Philips "HF Performer" is their budget cost ballast, built to the lowest cost possible and compete with other cheap ballasts from Osram, Tridonic, Magnetek, etc. Typical for these budget ballasts is series wiring, so they cannot properly control each tube separately.
They made other models with much better performance, but these were usually for the commercial specification market, like high rise buildings, where performance, efficiency, lamp life, etc were extremely important.
.
Note that electronic ballasts slightly under-run the tube, since HF operation gives about 10% increase in efficacy. Instead of more light they chose to save a bit of power.
The only electronic ballast that I saw and it runs the tubes separately is Osram Quicktronic Proffessional. Also HF-P is not their cheapest ballast, HF Basic or HF Essential is the cheapest
@@q3dev There are some ballasts which output and higher voltage and allow the operation of worn electrode fluorescent tubes at a lower power.
@@mernokimuvek Ballasts like that are in one of the shops im my city. The lamps are operating 24/7 and some of them are so dim that they are barely visible and some of them glow purple.
@@q3dev That happens when the phosphor in the tube absorbs the mercury and the light comes from argon and krypton. I have a lamp like that and I use it for decoration and experiments.
@@mernokimuvek They use TL-D Super80 and TL-D Eco lamps, which contain Xenon. I achieved a similar same effect with dimming a 32W "Eco" lamp
It is nice hardware. Love the Rubycon filter cap.
Thanks for the explanation! I've taken a few of these apart that were thrown out at work, interesting to see the engineering behind it!
POZOR! Another great video :D lol When I had a quick start electronic ballast FL Tube in my kitchen (the 3rd fitting in the space of 1 year!) I had enough. I took it apart to find an inductor at the end of the board had completely burnt out with that lovely burnt electronics smell. I gutted the fitting and bought an LED tube, the type that has live one end and neutral the other. Still working 5 years later though at dark when you turn it off, clearly some LEDs are ready for their end as you can see obvious dark spots as they all fade out. Still, more reliable than 2 electronic and 1 magnetic ballast fittings I have had in the past.
Always a pleasure to see how these thing work, truly 'the magic lamp' :D x
As always, excellent explanation!
Thanks for your good work.
Back in 2014 at the work I had at that time, I used to replace hundreds of fluorescent tubes each month. In few places they had electronic ballast dual tube light fixtures, and the rest were iron core type.
The electronic ones used to eat the tubes at higher rate than the usual type. And I got the fixture working by replacing one tube, but didn't last long. I had to replace both tubes for better longevity of the light.
They were probably cheap chineses tubes or ballasts.
Thanks for the video Daniel!
great video, can’t wait for the episode about magnetic ballasts
I really love fluorescent tubes and I have a collection of them. You should actually try this ballast together with both T8 and T12 65w tubes to see how it differs the waveform and specs because due to different gas filling T12 tubes can be much different
I don't have any T12 65W tubes...
You should fo and look around the local toxic trash center, they always have a room dedicated to fluorescent tubes, in my are that is the number one place where I get all my rare tubes, and you will find some 65w tubes there I can guarantee it, especially people are converting to led trash, many old and good equipment gets trashed.
The switch connected between terminals 3 and 4 of the battery backup unit is a momentary type for testing - it simulates mains failure. And yes, these backup inverters run the tube with cold cathodes, shortening tube life.
The best thing is the lamps turn on faster than using starters and magnetic ballast
For best tube life, slower is always better. This allows the filaments to get properly warm, reducing sputtering of the emissive paste coating.
The flickering start with glow starter is a byproduct of it opening at random point in the mains cycle. If it happens near peak of sinewave, lamp starts first go. If at any other point, lamp may not strike so it re-tries again after another short preheat. In cold temperatures, striking voltage needs to be higher, so you may get many blinks before luck occurs to hit right at voltage peak.
@@johncoops6897 thanks for the informations
@@johncoops6897Thank you for exaplanation of the flickering effect. I just had an idea to make some hybrid circuit with inductor, starter and triac swithching to eliminate that issue)
@@Blackened-h7n - you can eliminate the issue by installing an electronic starter.
I have seen several LED drivers in the 20-40 watt range with no optocoupler - would love to see you tear one down in the future!
Ďakujem ti za toto pekné videjko, priznám sa že túto problematiku príliš neovládam, rád som sa nechal poučiť.
I have recently purchased the older copper ballast from one store, which was lying with him for past 12 years. They are hard to find and great for testing power factors (energy meter testing).
I have some fixtures from "beghelli" (same brand as that emergency inverter) and i really like them, the older versions had some issues with the mosfets, but the most recent are working at least for 10 years by now, i compared the most recent with the typical iron core ballast and its day to night diference, the electronic ballast has a >0.9pf, it draws less power than the power stated on the lamps (almost half compared to the same tubes on a iron ballast), the lamps strikes without flicker and within a second or two, the light is flicker-less, and makes the light more white rather than blue/green. As far as i remember is possible to increase the efficiency of the tubes by increasing the driving frequency, if im not mistaken this ballasts i have run at around 10khz or so. As a side note, i switched to boring led tubes were the light is on more than half of the day...
I put 3 of these lights in my barn last weekend.
Light is extremely bright. They were given to me, as they were replaced by LEDs. But still, working light, why not.
Wow new video!
Nice 🙂
I've seen electronic ballast fittings cycle on and off while preheating. Usually, they do it with EOL tubes but eventually it will happen with new tubes as well. I have heard it's due to failing capacitor/s.
I have a 2x18 W fixture with electronic ballast and the tubes are operated independently. If I remove one the other still light up.
Nice! 👍🏻
Our electronic fluorescent ballasts/drivers in the US usually run the tubes in parallel.
Sure you are 120V.
@@sergepetrov8598 That has nothing to do with how the tubes are run on an electronic ballast. A typical electronic ballast here has an open circuit voltage of 450-600V.
Actually, both tubes have their own inductor and capacitor. Usually you can not simply run discharge lamps in parallel because they will have slightly different striking voltages and one strikes first.
Nice.
Good memory lane! I am surprised one can still buy them tubes as they actually contain a small amount of mercury.
in the UK they have effectively banned fluorescent tubes: once the supply of stock is gone, that is it, new fluorescent tubes can no longer be made.
So it's pretty much LED all the way now.
@@TheSpotify95 Philips still makes 12000K fluorescent tubes. I have seen them with A4 date code which means january 2024.
Philips even made 12000K snow white extreme cool daylight tubes.
This must be for aquariums, terrariums or something...
@@DiodeGoneWild No, they were for offices and similar lighting applications. They look slightly blue near a 6500K tube but simply white when only the same 12000K tubes are used.
Why is it a big no no to touch the circuit with just the tip of the oscilloscope probe?
12:00 What is the point of R1 in the schematic?
How could I not notice? :D
Not a fan of those designs, done plenty of commercial electrical maintenance and these don't last compared to an iron core style. If it's not the caps that dry out it's the transistors that cook themselves.
Also having the lamps in series makes it not worth retro converting to leds. At least with some led drivers I can wind the power down to give longevity.
c'mon almost 90 lumens/watt is amazing, the average LED is about 100 lumens/watt
But LED is boring, i do not care about their higher efficiency. Plasma light sources (fluorescent, high pressure mercury vapor, metal halide, low pressure sodium, high pressure sodium lamps and low pressure noble gas signs) are the best.
@@mernokimuvek i don't think you understood my comment, i said fluorescent having 90 lumens/watt while LED the being the latest technology is only about 10% better
@@My_Gaming_Mind I understood it, and I will always prefer discharge lamps over LEDs. I will never ever use LED tubes.
Philips invented and sells a 210 Lm/W Led bulb. its name is master ultra efficient, initially Dubai bulb
@@windbondream7634 goddamn do you understand the meaning of "average"? Tf
I have about 30 of these. Probably gonna scrap them since we've converted all te fixtures to LED.
Only a barbarian dumb individual would scrap them. Civilized and intelligent individuals collect them.
È lo stesso schema di un induction heater
Where is the second video about ic 555 😑
It's coming ;)
🎉@@DiodeGoneWild
electronic ballast are boring
They are not. If you think they are boring you cannot appreciate high frequency electronics.
No they're not. Its very interesting. The magnetic ballasts are the boring ones. Its just a big inductor.
@@simontay4851 MAgnetic ballasts are also interesting. The boring stuff is cheap LED fixtures made in china.