My grandfather has 4 lamp troffers in his basement that have a mix of F40T12 and F40T12/34 lamps. They have magnetic Advance ballasts. He has some serious relamping to do.

You should offer to do it for him

I did. He said He'll get the lamps soon. (by soon he means like by Thanksgiving. )

i heard the ballasts in these lights(accupro) are kinda junky and only last like 5-6 years used a few hours a day

The one I have makes a slight click when you turn it on.

Well if it dies, it dies and I'll have to replace it, this ballast does make a bit of click followed by a high pitched noise for a few seconds.

I've noticed it came with a *high quality* ballast and lampholders too.

So far the ballast seems to be fine, but those lampholders weren't quite far enough apart so I ended up having push them further back into the fixture just to get the lamps in, they are a horrible design too, it ended up taking myself plus someone else to hold the other end of the lamp - should it really take two people to install a lamp.

I was tempted to just replace all the sockets in this fixture but it that would ruin any warranty on it. For yours you'd be better off replacing all the sockets.

i check the sockets and only one is bad. The fixture only accepts snap-in sockets.

The older Lithonia fluorescents were decent but the new ones are just too badly built. For replacements I like using the Levitons or even better the Y-slot ones.

yes, but what I'm trying to say is, you can only use sockets that have two pegs that snap into the fixture housing.

Looks like their build quality got worse after I bought my Lithonia wraps in late 08, mine came with decent Leviton sockets and a full ballast cover that was wide enough for a magnetic ballast. The new stuff has narrow ballast channels that can only accept a electronic ballast.

I actually find the COOPER fluorescents to be better quality. The wraps i was talking baout are from 2011

Yeah, Metalux/Cooper is better quality than Lithonia now, so is Visioneering but the box stores don't sell them. The US made American fluorescent lumes are good too.

Lowe's sells American Fluorescent wraps under their Utilitech name. I have a Lithonia and a American Made wrap. The AM wrap is so much better. The lamps are wired parellel so if one goes out, the other stays lit. There is no blackening on the lamps at all in the AM one. The Lithonia one has lots of blackening on the lamps. The lamps blink constantly too.

Here's what the stores here sell:
Home Depot: Lithonia
Lowe's: Cooper/Metalux and American Fluorescent but branded as Utilitech
RONA: Lithonia
Canadian Tire: Canarm
Home Hardware: mix of Lithonia and Thomas Lighting

Mostly the same brands as the US stores.

Here at Lowe's the cooper broducts are boxed as Metalux/Cooper. The Cooper HID lighting was all phased out. It's just Utilitech now. I wish the lamps at the box stores cost less. I don't really like HD.

Same here with the Metaluxes they're sold as Cooper, but the HID lights are Heath-Zenith and a couple of Cooper wallpacks.

And I wouldn't buy HID lamps at the box store unless they were on sale or if I needed it right now. HID lamps are much cheaper online and from Restore if they sell them.

My Metalux Corp./Gibson Lighting Inc. surface-mount 1X4 troffers are great quality since they're from the 1970s! Of course they have decent sockets and magnetic ballasts (that probably have PCBs)