I BE BACCKK! Flourescent fixture issue

i'm no expert, but i have always had to replace the ballast if new bulbs didn't work. and you're right, a new fixture is a better idea.
can you order something led on line?

 

Replace 'em with LED bulbs. You'll never have burned out bulbs again, they won't fade over time, they run cooler, and they're cheaper to use. I did mine several years ago. Bypassing the ballast requires rewiring the fixture with new sockets, but it wasn't difficult at all.

Now they have direct plug-n-play LED replacements so you don't have to re-wire:

4 ft. T8 LED Tube - 1650 Lumens - 13W - 4100K - Plug and Play - LifeBulb LBT8F1641B-CS | 1000Bulbs.com

That's probably the easiest way to go, but those bulbs won't work without a working ballast, so they won't help you.

I would re-wire the fixture and use a standard LED bulb:

toggled 48 in. High Output 23-Watt Cool White T8/T12 LED Light Bulb-A423-40230 - The Home Depot

 

there's another thing to check - the starter.

https://www.acehardware.com/departments/lighting-and-electrical/replacement-parts-and-accessories/starters-and-ballasts/3265469

If that's bad, they won't start up either. It just twists out a 1/4 turn. Easy to replace and see if that's the problem. If that's it, then you could go the plug-n-play LED bulb route.

 

If it's fluorescent, and the tubes aren't the problem, the ballast is. But these days fluorescents are kinda dinosaurs anyway. (I guess sometimes it could be one of the sockets, but those are coin-lands-on-edge odds.)

I would look for a way to order online a nice LEDish fixture to replace it. Or maybe compare the price to a kit that retrofits it to LEDish "tubes" and requires taking the ballast out. That isn't hard, and if I remember right you have several hounds to watch over your shoulder and make sure you don't mess up. I'm sure the retrofit kit will have instructions that make it straightforward.

If the existing fixture is somehow nicer than a bare-bones striplight and you like it, then keeping it and retrofitting might make sense. If it's just an old ugly striplight anyway, then this could be the opportunity to find a nice LEDish one that's nicer.

 

And it could be the light switch itself. Oddly, in my house it is the three way switches that fail, never the simple single pole ones. Been in a new house 13 years, will be on my 4th sets of three way switches in some locations.

Walmart and Costco sell LED bulbs for the common length of fluorescent fixtures. Love em.

So what is the best way to attack this..

My approach would be
1. Are you sure you have rotated the tubes correctly?
2. Disable the fuse/breaker that controls the circuit.
Replace the switch. Re-engage the breaker. See what happens. Cost maybe $3-4.
If that works, you are done.
3. If not then breaker off. Swap the fixture. ~$20. Easier than debugging the starter.

You are probably better off throwing parts at the job than paying for labor hours.

 

Running a 2 light fluorescent fixture with only one light is a good way to burn out the older type of ballasts. I do not know of the newer electronic ballasts behave the same way.
Replace the fixture.

 

Seriously......you have ALL the evidence that you need, probably.

The fixture is getting power because it flickers.
The bulbs are new.
The only thing left is a bad ballast in the fixture.
And as you surmised, replacing the ballast is a royal PITA.
A new fixture is needed.
IF......you don't really need a lot of light, a simple one or two conventional style bulb fixture would work, with one or two LED bulbs.

No matter what you do, you will end up with two spare long bulbs because almost all new fixtures come with bulbs.

 

Something like this should work.

I have one with two metal probes that could be shoved into the sockets. It is old enough to not have an LED for the light. You don't want an actual circuit tester. Those have batteries in them, and are for testing things when they aren't hooked up to a power source. Of course, a multimeter would work.

But I'd just go to LEDs. Should be straight forward changing the fixtures. A retro fit shouldn't be much harder. You'd be cutting wires inside the fixture inside it instead of outside. Ease depends on how easy to get inside it, and how tight that inside is.

LEDs do fade, but over a period of years to florescent's months.

I stopped seeing starters in aquarium fixtures during the '90s Any old ones I still have left I plan to wire with the electric ballasts from old screw in florescent bulbs. Which I don't recommend here because it means soldiering.

 

The ones that were in my house and my parents house still have them. I didn't know how old Cyber's fixtures were, and




(Make that a geologist - the common redshirt)

Thanks for the info, though, I didn't know those were obsolete. Could explain why they were so expensive when I last replaced them...

 

I don't know when the old tar ballasts stopped being used, but everything is electronic now. If you still have the old ballasts, and LED isn't an option, it is worth it to upgrade it. The electronic ones are more efficient, and the bulbs should last longer with them.

 

During renovations I had the side door outside light fixture replaced. While the electricians were still around I hit the switch and the light didn't come on. I figured they had done a poor wiring job. Turns out - it was the light switch, which they had to replace. A rare occurrence, indeed.

 

LED conversions are nice, but they generally require that the host fixture is already set up for instant-start tubes, NOT rapid-start tubes.

There are tubes on the market which will drop into an instant-start fixture and work immediately with no modification, but to the best of my knowledge all rapid-start fixtures will require ballast-bypass at a minimum.

 

+1
Ditch the fixture.
Let hubby do it or tackle it yourself.

Standard fixtures are....standard for a reason.
Replacing it will be easy enough that even a hubster can do it - although you might want to put the decontamination chocolate porter off until he's back off the ladder.

I'd strongly recommend LED bulbs if for no other reason than you know that you won't be dealing with the fixture again for quite a while.

Good Luck!

Pictures....
(or it never happened!)

 

I just relamped our newly rented church facility. Most of the ballasts were the old magnetic type, and some of them had actually leaked their no-longer-legal goo. Installed "Toggled" (strange name) direct-wire (rip out the old ballasts, even the electronic ones) LED tubes: 3000K for the nave, 4000K for the other areas. Some Home Depots have them, and Amazon may have them (although not so long ago there was a per-customer limit).

 

I haven't found that to be the case really.

There was a period 15 years or so ago when my way of lighting a space like an unfinished basement was to go to, e.g., Menards, pick up a couple of their cheap two-tube shoplights (usually some would be on sale for $12 or so), return through the electrical aisle and pick up a couple electronic replacement ballasts and some decent Phillips tubes.

The reason was that the ballasts that came with the fixtures would often have a "ballast factor" (not to be confused with "power factor", which is also a thing) as low as 0.65 or so. The ballast factor is the amount of light the tubes would produce compared to what was printed on them. A couple nice 3000 lumen tubes and you'd be expecting 6000 lm of light and getting only 3900, and wondering why the basement felt sort of dingy.

Recycle the junky ballasts right away and put in even the basic electronic replacements from the next aisle over and the same fixtures and tubes suddenly lit the place up for real.

The ballast is usually held into the fixture by one screw, and maybe an opposite corner that fits under a notch. It has about half a dozen wires that are color coded like the old one coming out. They only took minutes to change.

But my fluorescent days are through. One thing I didn't like in the basement, which isn't exactly a vaulted space, was that the shoplights hanging down from the floor joists lowered the clearance even more.

As it's unfinished and I wasn't too concerned with aesthetics, I bought some of the sticky 5050 LED tape, 5000 lumens per roll, cut it into sections about 12 LEDs long, and stuck three of those sections, spaced out, to the bottom edges of about every third joist. No more ducking for shoplights hanging down, and the light is way more even because it's not coming from just a couple places. The tape needs 12 volts, which can come (depending on the total length being powered) from an ordinary power-brick style supply, plugged into the ceiling outlet where the shoplights used to plug in.

The LED tape does still like to stay cool, and wooden joists might not be the greatest heatsinks, so I got a roll of wide aluminum tape (as seen for ducts, etc.). Where each section of LED tape will go, a length of aluminum tape goes first (wide enough to fold a little way up both sides of the joist) and the LED tape is stuck to the aluminum. Seems to dissipate the heat just fine.

And you know what, I've got no problem with the aesthetics the way it worked out.