Home Improvement Today?

I have a five light florescent overhead garage light that takes 4ft florescent bulbs. I thought three of the bulbs had just burnt out so I picked up a few more. When I installed the new bulb nothing happened. I checked in a working section of the fixture and the new bulbs are fine. Anyone know why the three other bulb spots wouldn’t be working but the other two are? I really just wanted it to be a replace the bulb fix and not some involved PITA. Any suggestions?

 

Ballast prob went out

 

Best guess would be a bad ballast.

 

would a bad ballast be independent to each slot? Like why are two working and three aren’t.

 

If you take of the center section of the light cover you can seethe ballast and wiring. Lowes or homedepot usually has them just have to find the part number

 

When I worked for an electrical engineer, for office lighting (before LEDs) we'd specify a fixture with three lamps in it with a single lamp ballast and a two lamp ballast so they could decide if they wanted one, two or all three lights on. So yes, you could have some lamps working and others not if there are multiple ballasts.

 

Pic would be helpful, some have 2 ballasts in them

 

Like others have said, ballast or starter has gone bad. But do not replace them. Ditch those old tubes and install led replacement tubes.

$39 JESLED T8 LED 4FT Type A+B Light Bulbs, 24W(65W Equivalent), 3000LM, 6000K Super Bright, Plug and Play or Ballast Bypass, 4 Foot LED Fluorescent Tube Replacement, ETL Listed, Dual-Ended, Clear(4-Pack)

https://www.amazon.com/JESLED-Dual-...rescent+replacement+tubes,aps,132&sr=8-6&th=1

 

Kinda have to take the reflective covers off and see how many ballasts you have and which lights run to which ballast. Or replace them with the leds.

Sometimes its the contacts in the ends not making good connection, can wiggle the light and see if it comes on. But usually its ballasts

 

before I put new ballasts in I would convert to LEDs that bypass the ballast (type B if I remember correctly)

 

Yup. You can sometimes find them on ebay in bulk packs but anymore its cheaper to convert them or replace with new LED fixture

 

Agree on not time warping back to the 70's and just replace with LED

 

5-bulb fixtures almost always have 2 separate ballasts.

they make a 6-bulb ballast, but most mfg's, above 3-lamp units almost always use 2 separate ballasts, to allow more end-user customization, as well as some failsafe operation.

+1 to ripping out all of it, and running direct-wire led bulbs.

 

Honestly I think it's time to swap that out with something more efficient. Those T8's are about a thing of the past thanks to LED technology.

 

Still better than T12s!

 

Thanks for all the advice. I’ll probably be stripping out the ballasts and replacing with the LEDs based on all the comments here. One thing I’m learning about homeownership over the last three years is what should be simple never seems to be the first time.

 

Never is really. But you learn as you go