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My grandfather's F40
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Here's one of his 4 F40T12 fixtures. These were taken from a Western Electric switching facility by my great-grandfather. These were removed in the mid 80s i think (around the time my grandpa made the garage) and are from the early-to-mid 70s.
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[8/28/12]
Thanks. I love old fluorescents too. I remember staring up at these while my grandpa would be changing the engine oil in the cars or while he was mowing the lawn. I've never seen a burned out lamp in any of the three, or any of his fluorescent fixtures. He'd call me and my dad to fix them if there was an issue since he can't balance on the ladder anymore becuase of his parkinson's. I'd guess these are 1960s lights. The very top is either VERY thick metal or cast aluminum.
[Original post:]
I looked at the paper UL tag on the endcap on the "spare" light in the basement that sits in the far corner collecting dust. I didn't open it up though. The fixture is a lot heavier than one would expect. Last night i was over their house (we visit every friday after supper for a few hours) and my dad had to borrow a skill saw so i tagged along with him into the basement to look that fourth one of these that's currently unused.
The outside simply has the UL sticker and a sticker that says to plug the conduit holes on the end if they're unused (which he didn't do LOL). I can only imagine what's in these lights with those huge openings.
The three-lamp half-piper has a center lamp that just glows dimly and blinks slightly. I didn't here a clicking starter, but my dad was rumaging around for the saw so maybe i jsut didn't hear it? Anyways, i'm bringing a new GE EcoLux lamp and a new starter next friday.
I'll ask if i can look at this light next time too to check why it has trouble starting on a cold start. After it starts, it'll come on when you flick the switch but if it's off for over a half-hour, you have the flick the switch a few times or else nothing happens. It's probably a grounding issue so i'll remove the lamps and clean them along with the reflectors and sand where the ground wire is connected to the fixture, as these are magnetic rapid start fixtures. While I'm at it I'll check the brand of the ballast. That's if my grandpa lets me "screw" with his light as he'd put it.
It's only been recently that it's had this problem too. He was thinking it was the lamps or the ballast but i told him that's not the case with this one. A little fun fact though: He's never changed any of the six lamps in the garage since i was born! He's had to change the T17 a couple years ago and one of the halfpiper lamps (one halfpiper lamp is a Canadian Sylvania probably from the early 2000s and the other two are Value-Brite F20T12 lamps. even if the unlit lamp is good I'll change it since it's an interesting addition to me collection.
I wonder if that's permitted by building codes? Or was someone garaging a semi truck?
Can you make a garage fireproof with just SheetRock? I would think so...