Goofy fluorescent light fixtures

[Wade Lippman]

It's either a bad ballast or the fixture isn't grounded.

Both will cause hard starting issues............Regards, Rod.

Is either explanation compatible with working fine for months then working poorly for months, repeat?

[Rod Sheridan]

Is either explanation compatible with working fine for months then working poorly for months, repeat?

Yes, especially if the humidity was high...........Rod.

[Howard Evans]

Fluorescent lamps are a gas discharge device and depend onthe pressure of the mercury gas to ignight when hit by the high voltage pulsefrom the ballast… The pressure of the gas is dependent on the temperature ofthe surrounding area and is the reason that standard lamps have a problem igniting when outside in the winter..
Adding to that problem, it is impossible to make a perfect metal to glass seal where the electrodes exit the tube and over time the gas pressure will decrease causing the reliable firing point to climb to a higher temperature…
None of this takes into account the aging of the older magnetic ballasts which begin to fail and cause problems..
In my office building we have a total of 75 ea. four foot fixtures each having 4 lamps, they were installed in 1986.. Many have had new ballasts and more were failing. Added to that we were replacing several lamps each week.
I ordered 300 18 watt/48 inchT8 LED lamps from a company on eBay… Cost was about $3.50 each.. Spent several days opening each fixture, removing the ballast and minor rewiring of the fixture… That was finished up about July of last year.. We have replaced about 5 of the bulbs that failed, otherwise everybody is well pleased… Plenty of light and no flickering, slow starting, etc…..
For what it’s worth… The company shipped me 330 lamps and billed me for the 300…. So we are ahead of the game in warranty replacements…
When we put the pen to it it was cheaper to purchase the 4 lamps for a fixture than to replace 1 ballastand 2 fluorescent lamps. I got it down to 15 minutes per fixture to do the mod…..
Just useless rambling on a rainy Saturday morning