Random Pieces of Trivia About Yourself...

[Mike]

ugh well the warm white lamp kept me feeling nice and warm but I couldn't get into gear with it so the cool white is going back lol. I don;t have a daylight 20W lamp.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Interesting...

[Mike]

Yeah the cool white works much better. I noticed that the ballast was a lot louder with the Alto than with any of the other lamps (which all happen to be full mercury). All I could come up with was "Hmm. Interesting." lol. it makes me wonder if less mercury in the lamps makes the ballast work harder. It was in my closet (about 67-71 degrees this time of year; there's a thermometer in my room) and was warm enough.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

As far as I know "Eco" lamps shouldn't hurt (especially vintage) ballasts unless maybe it went really mercury starved and was left like that for a long time if the light was on all day or something...

[Mike]

yeah i don't know why the ballast reacted that way. I even checked to make sure nothing else was vibrating, etc.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Sometimes things like that will happen though...for whatever reason my Sears shoplight hums loudly while those stupid mercury-starved Sylvania Cool White Plus lamps warm up.  Then it's pretty quiet. (That ballast is fairly silent in general, despite having overheated and lost tar from 34  watt energy savers in it's previous life). 

[Mike]

yeah maybe ballasts have lamp preferences lol. I know I don't really like Altos too much. They never seem to last and are dimmer than other lamps. The non-alto Philips lamps are still pretty good so i don't get why they don't see that altos are killing their reputation. Philips seems more like a bargain brand nowadays rather a quality company. they seem to care more about having the lowest price over quality. Their high CRI non-alto fluorescents and LEDs are very good but they're also expensive. once they find a way to cheap-a-fy them then they might not be as good. GE fluorescents are pretty good. even the ecolux tubes aren't bad. plus they're high CRI and bright too. Sylvania lamps are pretty good too but i heard their T8s are pretty bad on IS ballasts, though IS ballasts and bi-pin lamps don't go good together anyways.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Really? Full-wattage Altos seem pretty bright to me except the crappy 34w energy saver ones which they don't make anymore anyway!
I like GE Ecolux lamps except for that green etch; I'd rather have the green ends actually! Sylvania T12s are pretty good except for their warmup issue.

[Mike]

The altos aren't really dim, but the GE Starcoat SP lamps are brighter. Those non-alto Philips NATURAL LIGHT ~5000K lamps are really dim compared to a cool white plus Alto too. I went over my granparents last night for an early xmas party and didn't need to change any tubes. The newest lamps are from 2012 and are Alto CWP lamps. before that are non-alto 5000K high-CRI lamps (only two of them). before that are daylight altos from 2008. the earliest lamps are the original lamps, which are unbranded (but made my philips) 1996 F34T12/CW/EW Econ-o-watt tubes. there are about 12 of them left, which isn't bad out of 32 lamps.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Is that in the basement you got your infamous electric shock in?

[Mike]

yep. i didn't get shocked this year lol. i got a nifty little electrical book based on the NEC that explains a lot of household wiring that will come in really handy for any projects i might need to do.

[joe_347V]

I have one of those too but it's based off the Ontario Code instead of the NEC. It's a older edition though.

Oh and one of those NSTs really give a nasty shock. I got shocked by it a few years back.

[Mike]

do you know if a fluorscent ballast can give a bad shock? I've wondered if removing the tubes with the fixture on would shock the fixture if one end of the tube was in the socket and the other end touched the fixture body (I'm thinking about those troffers lol).

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Possibly...I doubt it though since it wouldn't be lit if only one end was connected...but I'm not sure.
I have a couple old home wiring books I picked up at a rumage sale, one's from 1962 and the other is I think from the early 80s.  They're a little dated for sure nowadays but it's still good information for things like wiring 3-way switches, etc.

[Mike]

yeah stuff like wiring 3-way switches doesn't change. Just stuff like the type of wire that can be used, etc.

Ugh I had the biggest PITS problem today with iTunes. Apparently I needed to enter my security questions, which i didn't know the answers to so they wouldn't let me make any song purchases. I ended up having to call them and register my brother's iPod under my name to (somehow) prove that I was really me. I was LOGGED IN with the CORRECT username and password so WHY are you questioning my identity? I'm buying songs. It's not like I'm logging into a bank account.

anyways, they finally reset them for me and now i have them written down so I never lose them lol.