This GE-made-in-Indonesia Lights of America F15T8 started flashing tonight - as you can see, one electrode is out of emitter. What surprised me is that the lamp ends barely had any discoloration, so I thought that lamp had a long ways to go still (compared to another fixture in my kitchen with the same type of lamp and much more end blackening). When I replaced it, I was surprised how much brighter the new lamp turned out to be!
And now it has a very dark end and no vacuum. I finished it off on an F40T12 electronic ballast. It took about half an hour of steady burning with occasional rhythmic end flashing either purple or orange, then a few minutes of one end being steadily orange as the filament disappeared and the arc ate the lamp stem, followed by some crazy swirling, flashing and then, imagine the photo above with the orange end growing until it almost reached the white end....and then...dead. My entertainment for the night!
i have one of those mercury starved LOA F15T8/CW lamps laying around somewhere, it has a lot of blinking before it will start up and stay lit, it acts much like a cold F34T12 lamp!
I received 3 older LOA fixtures from a friend, found a few more at thrift stores and bought a few electronic-ballasted ones that I converted to preheat. As many have special lamps in them, I had a surplus of the original LOA CWs but the etches vary. I have mostly the newer gold etch ones left.
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