70w flourescet tubes won't light

[333rocky333]

And as a total hijack (not posted about this as it's a low priority) - in my loft I have 3 x twin-tube (short) fittings. They actually came out of old lightboxes, and are 450mm max tubes. Switch start, and when switched on, two of the fittings do the usual short-flicker-and-on. One of them does SFA. No flickering, no abortive attempts to start, no phantom glow at the ends of the tubes, nada. As if it had no power at all.

After several minutes (5? 10? Not an exaggeration, but I've never timed it properly) it just suddenly comes on with no drama.

450mm tended to be a 15w tube, it was common to wire two of them in series using a single choke for the two and is still done in many Flykillers, this set up meant you also needed to fit two 4-22 watt series starters, a common mistake was fitting two 4-65 watt starters

 

[333rocky333]

Well it seems I was mistaken in thinking the lights had starters, they don't as the lid off photo shows -

They are double lamp lights but I only have one tube in each.

Each lamp circuit has what looks like a tube shape capacitor and two white boxes.

The electric wholesaler doesn't have T12 lamps. The local DIY store has a few left at £11 each.

Too blurry to tell what you have

 

[ban-all-sheds]

450mm tended to be a 15w tube, it was common to wire two of them in series using a single choke for the two and is still done in many Flykillers, this set up meant you also needed to fit two 4-22 watt series starters, a common mistake was fitting two 4-65 watt starters

IHNI what the tubes are, or how they are wired, and I'm b*****ed if I'm going to go into the loft now to look. But I can report that all 3 "fittings" are as they have always been, that originally, and for some time thereafter, all 3 worked just fine, and 2 still do.

 

[DIYspanner]

New T12 tubes are £11 but may not even work.

Local electric wholesaler has T8 6' fittings in for £24 inc vat so may just invest.

Thanks again for posting folks, interesting reading.