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Run 14w T5 in 24w ballast/luminaire?

nry

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Joined
23 Oct 2007
Messages
1,225
Location
Cumbria, UK
I couldn't find the answer to this on Google, so I wondered if anyone here knew if you can safely run a 14w T5 (549mm) in a luminaire designed to run 24w T5's?
 
Has anyone got any ideas? There's odds and sods on Google but nothing specific - it seems to be possible, but I don't want to over drive the bulbs.
 
Well, lots of credit to Arcadia! I e-mailed them 5 minutes ago - and got a very prompt reply stating that fitting NO T5's to the OTL T5 would over drive the bulbs and burn them out. Ah well :)
 
Hi all,
What ever Arcadia have told you, in the short term you definitely can. It will shorten lamp life, but you should still get several months out of the tube if not longer.

Whether you can do it longer term depends upon the ballast. If you can open the fitting? it should have the rating on the electronic ballast. A lot of T5 ballasts will run anything from a 14W to 39W lamps.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks Darrel, should be easy enough to access the ballasts, I'll have a look when they hopefully turn up on Thursday :)
 
I believe you can buy overwatt t5 tubes too which will happily run at say 25 watts when they're only 14 watt bulbs only problem is I can't remember where I saw them now
 
I want them to run at 14w though, not 24w, that way I keep the wpg down to a sensible figure :)
 
Hi all,
I want them to run at 14w though, not 24w, that way I keep the wpg down to a sensible figure
I think that if it is a dimmable ballast they will run at normal 14W, but if they are "ordinary" electronic ballasts you may end up with a very bright 14W light.

I first found out that the electronic ballasts had a wide rating when I wondered why 525mm 13W T5 fittings were so much dimmer than 549mm 14W ones.

I took apart some cheap under-cabinet link lights and I found that the 13W run from the same ballast as the 4W, 6W & 8W, and the 14W ballast also ran the lamps up to 35W.

cheers Darrel
 
Cheers, someone else pointed that one out - worst case, they're around £20 and I think would be an easy replacement - for now I'm planning to blackout the white reflector plate, that should reduce things a good deal.
 
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