How does everyone feel about T5 and HF now?

[Nick217]

Still stand by that T5 was the demise of quality fluorescent lighting and reliability too.

[Flurofan96]

@Beta 5: With metal made fluorescent fixtures, the ballast would be able to let the heat dissipate - its the plastic ones that are the culprit of shortening the life of electronic ballasts. Also the twin tube ballasts have a higher failure rate (one of the fixtures I rescued had a dead Tridonic in it) - now I got confidence to use the Fitzy LP158 fixture thanks to its non Chinese made ballast, the metal body and the fact it is single tube

@Nick217: True that but the vintage T5 fixtures and tubes that are usually below 14W are the quality ones. The T8/T12 retrofit/larger wattage substitutes ones are defo the demise of the quality of fluorescent lighting but still a lot of them do gazillion better than LED and they are more serviceable

On the subject of electronic ballasts, I always love the long slim ones over the chunky and short ones

[Beta 5]

Yeah the T5 short 4-13W are their own thing really, halophosphor tubes that fit in the category of T12's etc. than the modern HF driven HE/HO T5's.

Reliability definitely went downhill with T5, and of course there have been some completely crap fittings and gear made for them over the years. A good quality ballast and tube should last a while, you just don't have the almost guarantee you do with mag that all you'll be changing are the lamps when it goes out.

[Flurofan96]

Whilst there is a good amount of quality made electronic ballasts for linear fluorescent fixtures - they will not provide the ultra reliability guarantee that you get with magnetic ballasts - plus the large wattage T5 tubes don't have a very long lifespan that even recently made T8s and T12s can outlive them

[Ash]

The mag gear have better overall reliability against most gear failure modes, but HF (of the better types, with a PFC stage) does in fact have a few advantages in the reliability/resilience area :

It does work better against abnormal (but within the range it can handle, and spike free) line voltages - Most types of magnetic gear will translate the line voltage variations into lamp current variations, so under/overdrive the lamps, possibly shortening their life quite a lot

It does cope better with power quality problems like line flicker, caused by the electrical installation and other loads, that magnetic gear will translate straight into disturbing lamp brightness fluctations

It does extend the lamp life. Not only at starting (which can be achieved equally well with an electronic starter), but HF hours actually do clock less on the tubes than 50 Hz hours

It has also some of the same advantages as magnetic gear with electronic starters over glow starters

Considering what reliability issues you expect the most for a particular setup, HF might be bad or good choice, well as long as you have any choice at all

[Flurofan96]

I knew about the extra long life with the bulbs/tubes that electronic ballasts can achieve - this is handy for running vintage tubes/bulbs with peace of mind that you are not wearing them out that much

And that same peace of mind applies when fluctuations occur in the line voltage feed, the electronic ballast will compensate/maintain the equilibrium hence not ruining the tube/bulb

Overall the high frequency operation of electronic ballasts makes it ideal for environments or ppl who are prone to headaches or whatever issue that can be caused by the 50 or 100Hz operation of mag ballasts. Plus if instant start is needed then electronic ballasts are the answer

[FrontSideBus]

The 21 and 14w T5 Sylvania undercabinet link lights that I have in the kitchen are still on their original lamps and they have been getting used every evening since 2013. Sometimes they get left on all day too.
It's only the 8w fittings that have used up a couple of lamps each. Not bad tbh.

[Beta 5]

That's pretty good FSB. Have you noticed any lumen drop in the 14W and 21W ones? I've replaced quite a lot of GE LongLast 28W and 35W tubes as they are lasting so long the phosphors have degraded to a warmer colour and lost a fair bit of output before the cathodes are EOL.
The T5 short range are always more short lived, mostly seem to be rated 5...8k hrs, though some of the older 8W tubes do go on for ages!