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balasts or flicker question

liqourish

Seedling
Joined
6 Nov 2008
Messages
15
my lamp i got it used. its a 48' single florescent light. when i go to turn it on it flickers for like 5 seconds to turn on. wud this shock(as in freak out) the fishes? to fix this i need a new ballast? my smaller lamp(for 10 gallons , used as back center light :D) doesnt flicker but charges for a min and just lights on, mjuch quicker.

using a t12 florescent 6500k 40 watt bulb atm.
 
At a guess, i would say that the light that flicker uses a startet to light the lamp. And the lamp flickering for a few seconds at start up is normal


Your other lamp more than likely has an elctronic ballast which lights the lamp with no flicker.

Hope that helps.

Cheers Gordon.
 
yep sounds right to me.

better desription of timings would tell.

A magnetic ballast with starter will mean the tube flicker starts but that should 3 or 4 filckers and last no more than a few seconds

an electronic ballast will delay for a second or less and then turn on with no flicker.

If the magnetic one is flickering a lot it may be the starter that needs replacing or the tube itself.

If the electronic one starts flickering ( I have had this once) then there may be a problem with the whole ballast.

AC
 
thanks , makes sense. wish it was electronic then lol. the flicker is annoying :/
 
liqourish said:
thanks , makes sense. wish it was electronic then lol. the flicker is annoying :/

You could replace the old ballast with an electronic one and just re use the bar and caps. the startes are then no longer an issue.
 
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