????Light ballasts????

I was in a lighting warehouse today (cant remember what it was called) and came across some lighting ballasts which were for 2 X 75W, i was wondering if it would is possible to run other tubes on that for example four 40W T8 tubes or five 30W T8 tubes. The reason is that the 2 X 75W balast was going for R275.00 which would be a lot cheaper than say five 30W ballasts @ +- R100.00 each.

 

Not sure exactly how these things work, but I'm guessing if you ran them in series and connected two 30-35w per "channel" of 75w that it should work.

Zafgak is your man for this stuff.

 

If it was an electronic ballast chances are that it will not work - If it was the magnetic ballast then yes it will work ................

 

Thanx Gavin
The salesman was showing me all the ones that were electronic and this wansnt one of the ones he said were electric but i wouldn't trust that, is there a way to see if it electric or magnetic like on the packaging. The other thing i was wondering was - would two 80w t5's work on a balast rated as two 75w.

 

Again - the 2 80W T5's would work on a magnetic ballast. The difference between the two is easy - the 80W magnetic weighs 17 tonnes and the electronic weighs 10 grams

Also electronic is FAR smaller

 

Must have been magnetic cause it was quite heavy and realy realy big, much more so than the other ones they had there. think i might go get one and see if it works... Thanx again

 

Sailing - the magnetic ballasts are DUMB devices, so they will just drive whatever tubes you attach to them, but be careful they will just as easily burn a tube out if you do not sort of match wattage.. So an 80W ballast give it as close to 80W of tubes as you can.

 

Thanx Zafgak, so if it is a magnetic and i get one how would i connect it up to say a few 36W tubes.
Like this???