The Lamp Room

Some of my pulse starters especially EFS600 don’t like 8 foots. My durastart, deta, and some of the other pulsestarters don’t like my 8 foots either. They won’t strike the tube they stick and get red hot

I use them every day to start my 125w 8 footers & never had any problems. 8ft 100w have a higher strike voltage but I use them to strike them up for testing & again never any issues.

Only time I've ever seen them struggle was when I was trying to strike up 125w tubes on 100w gear which I've since learned isn't compatible. Even then they just tried to strike the tube once but failed to do so, starter just shut down, didn't get hot or anything

Some of my pulse starters especially EFS600 don’t like 8 foots. My durastart, deta, and some of the other pulsestarters don’t like my 8 foots either. They won’t strike the tube they stick and get red hot

Interesting. I got a few 58W luminaires with vintage (~1987) EFS600 Pulsestarters in them. In one the Plastic is a little melted there the corners of the SCR tab touch it. I havent yet checked whether it is "stuck". The SCR is not the present day TN22, but its etch suggests that it was something made by Texas Instrument specifically for Arlen

PS. In one of them was also a SB electronic starter, i guess from around the same time

Can't say I've ever seen one stick or melt. I've got a Thorn PP2100 in my workshop, one side running a 100w tube, the other side running 125w. Both have LEL Multipulse starters in and strike just fine every time.

Interesting. Admittedly all of my EFS600's are NOS early ones. But then I found in the spec sheet it says
“Warnings
Not suitable for 2400mm 85W, 100W and 1500mm 115W-140W sunbed lamps”

In Zeus (Relco) starters there is a PTC in series with te entire thing. I guess it is supposed to cut the starter off if it is stuck - But it looks like it cuts the starter off even in normal use (sometimes ?) - I have 3 Zeus's, that i know where they were used. 2 were in lanterns that were in use every day, most of the day (~2 starts/day maybe) and the 3rd in a lantern that barely seen any use. Over the PTC there is a Glass braid sleeve impregnated with some sort of resin. In the 2 that seen many hours the resin is browned and in the 3rd it is colorless

Thoughts : Does the started keep conducting and the PTC cutting it out ? But if the PTC would be the actual component doing the interruption, it would be too slow to make and impulse from the ballast. (lamps were 36W's, they would not reliably start with just preheating and no impulse). Perhaps it gets hot by the time the starter strikes (not hot enough to actually interrupt the current, so it is still the SCR making the interruption), but does not stay hot the rest of the time ?

The Palmstep starters (from the 6 year old VS LNN ballasts document) indeed have a separate starter "SolarStart" for the 115+W tubes. It isn't the same as the "4..infinity" EFS600 and its likes