Fluorescent Light with BC Light in

[toshiba tony]

Hello All, Im normally on the audio\visual side of this site but I have a query about a light in our kitchen from the 60's. A five feet fluorescent light that had a low wattage bulb at the end. When you turned it on the lamp flickered in sympathy with the tube. How was it wired in?, and for what reason was it fitted. I can't find anything on the net. Cheers.

[Robsradio]

Hi
I assume you are not referring to the neon glow type starter?
Could you post a photo?
Most of the 60s fittings used a small heating element and bimetallic strip starter, glow types were a little later.
Rob

[bionicmerlin]

Are you sure it’s a normal bulb at the end. In my odds and ends collection I have what looks like a normal bulb but Infact it is a starter switch. It is a normal lamp size but has a starter switch base on it . Andy

[Robsradio]

Interested... could you post a pic?
Rob

[dragonser]

Hi,
I seem to remember many years ago one of the lights in the room of one of the local doctors has a fluorescent tube with a light bulb at the end of it.. I think it might have been used as something like a ballast ?
I also remember talking to one of the doctors and asking with the ceiling light bulbs were not working. I think they told be that the fittings were an unusual type and it was difficult to get the bulbs. ( would they have been es ? )

[bionicmerlin]

. I have just had a flashback to my youth.
I can remember my father was working as an electrician in a ex car sales showroom in the late 60s .it had recessed double flouresent lights ,at each end it looked like a small gulf ball lamp recessed My father said the reason 90% of the lights were not working was the lamp starter switch was faulty or missing . They might of been Philips but not sure.
they couldn’t find a supplier to replace them, in the end they put new fittings in . So I think that backs up my previous message.
If I can find my old lamp starter I will take a picture .i think it’s at my parents Andy

[toshiba tony]

Oh dear, it is so vague with me now. I don't think had a conventional glow starter in it, whether it had a ballast choke I can't remember. But as has been said it could have played the part of a ballast. But thanks all.

[Mr Moose]

Hello,
Probably a combined resistive ballast lamp and starter, see:-
https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gal...s=57&pid=84012
It was used in the Atlas "Kitchenlight" under a slotted red cover. (The fitting in the following video has been modified to use a conventional ballast so you can't see any light from the ballast lamp.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R_nrYCt3_0
Yours, Richard

[emeritus]

The closed thread "obsolete fluorescent light fittings" has several posts that mention or describe fittings that incorporate filament bulbs. For example #17,18, 25, 86-92, 124-5, 148-163, 175, 181, 200.

[bionicmerlin]

Ahh so it looks like my bulb acts as a ballast as well. .
It’s almosy the same as in the link above but the bulb is slightly whiter .Andy

[broadgage]

Yes it sounds like a fluorescent lamp that uses an incandescent bulb as a ballast, thereby saving the cost and weight of a wound choke.

Two main types existed.
Those with a conventional glow or thermal starter in addition, and those with the starter built into the incandescent lamp.
The former type typically used a 3 pin bayonet base.
The later type used a unique base.

Are you certain that the fluorescent tube was five feet in length ?
Series ballast lamps were more common with 4 foot tubes.
For use on standard AC mains voltages, the ballast lamps came in several slightly different voltages and wattages according the exact supply voltage.
Often a range from about 150 volts for 200/210 volt mains, up to about 170 volts for 230/240 volt mains. Current rating about half an amp.

For a five foot 80 watt tube, a parallel pair of ballast lamps, each intended for use with a four foot tube could be used.

The tungsten lamp did add a bit to the illumination, and also improved the colour rendering.

Other fluorescent light fittings incorporated filament lamps that were NOT part of the tube operating circuit, but were for other purposes.
Examples included lights for hospital wards, a low power incandescent for night lighting.
Lights for photo developing that incorporated a small lamp behind a deep red filter as a safe light.
And an incandescent bulb connected to a central battery emergency lighting system.

[turretslug]

Some industrial light fittings combined discharge and incandescent illuminance, with the incandescent bulb used to reduce dead-time contrast that could produce dangerous stroboscopic effects with machinery.

[boxdoctor]

I remember from the 1960s Philips 5' fittings fitted with a ballast bulb at one end. The bulb was about the physical size of a 60w incandescent, and had half-silvering on the inside of the globe to deflect the rather dim light upwards to a reflector which then directed it downwards in a diffused beam.
Still one or two spotted in use at a local hospital in 2001! Tony.

[toshiba tony]

That's the one, the bulb was slightly masked, in the 60's they were popular. As were tubes with BC connectors. One other thing, whilst I'm in my rewind mode!
Large four pin starters? And thank you all, this dementia won't screw me over!


PS Who remembers thermionic devices (joke)

[Robsradio]

Large four pin starters were used in 60s fittings, I remember the blackboard lights at high school having them.
Basically 2 pins fed a heater element and the other two pins were to a normally closed bimetallic switch.
The heater was in the live feed, and the switch across 1 pin at each tube end.
So when the lamp was switched on the circuit was complete with the tube filaments heating and the heater in the starter heating the bimetallic switch.
Upon the starter switch contacts opening the lamp would hopefully strike, and the circuit would be maintained through tube ionisation, thus keeping the heater in the starter hot and contacts open.
If it failed to strike the circuit would be open, the bimetallic switch would cool, and the contacts would remake and the cycle would repeat until the lamp lit.
Hope that makes sense.
Rob

[toshiba tony]

Perfectly explained, Rob. It takes me back to my 224 courses, detailed. Thank you.

[bionicmerlin]

Heres my lamp / starter its got Top on it I don’t know if it’s a brand name or Infact should be at the top. It says to control a 4FT 40 watt tube.
Even Rosie is having a hard time working out what it is .Andy

[toshiba tony]

Flipping' Heck. Iv'e been going over some of my old gear, valves, manuals, even some Rowe-Ami juke box spares but seeing one of those again.

[bionicmerlin]

I can’t remember how I got hold of it. Certainly not from a fitting I removed.
Assuming the lamp replaced a ballast I wonder how often these got replaced with a normal 4 pin starter. .oh dear

[broadgage]

The large 4 pin starters were generally as described in post #15. They were known as thermal starters and should be selected according to the running current. They also worked on DC.
There also existed 4 pin glow starters, intended to replace a thermal starter. These had the glow starter connected to the large pins, and the small pins linked together internally.
The main drawback of thermal starters was the continual loss of a watt or two in the heater.
A glow starter consumes nothing once the lamp is lit.

There also existed "double glow" starters that contained two electrically independent starters. These came in a blue anodised metal can. They were used in illuminated street signs.