1950/60's Fluorescent Gooseneck Desk Lamp Ballast Arrangement
15w Fluorescent gooseneck desk lamp, unknown era but most likely 1950/60's

This has a manual starter button and this capacitive ballast arrangement in the base. Marked simply as 'Voltage Regulator 220-250v' and is wired in series with the neutral strangely. It works fine but it's noisy! I'm unsure how the starter button is wired but doesn't appear to heat the cathodes when pressed?

This will be rewired with a new magnetic ballast in a remote box before it's put into use

1950/60's Fluorescent Gooseneck Desk Lamp Ballast Arrangement

15w Fluorescent gooseneck desk lamp, unknown era but most likely 1950/60's

This has a manual starter button and this capacitive ballast arrangement in the base. Marked simply as 'Voltage Regulator 220-250v' and is wired in series with the neutral strangely. It works fine but it's noisy! I'm unsure how the starter button is wired but doesn't appear to heat the cathodes when pressed?

This will be rewired with a new magnetic ballast in a remote box before it's put into use

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Comment 1 to 7 of 7
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Simon_R   [30 May, 2017 at 04:04 PM]
Back home we had a Tricity cooker (1960s) with the same starter arrangment I disconected it and installed a normal starter!
fluorescent   [30 May, 2017 at 04:13 PM]
I do like the manual preheat starter button arrangement, but this one appears to be wired wierd. Can't​ see or feel any cathode heating when it's pressed? Odd
Simon_R   [30 May, 2017 at 04:22 PM]
I remember the cooker tube used to light straightaway, it was like an extra part fitted to the on/off push button switch.
Danny   [30 May, 2017 at 04:43 PM]
Interesting!
Arrowslim   [30 May, 2017 at 09:10 PM]
I had one of these ages ago... the 'ballast' arangement seemed to be very hard on the tubes,(and as you have noticed, was hardly silent) i found that an inline magnetic ballast box worked a lot better. A shame these werent as popular here as they were in the states & Oz
Kev   [30 May, 2017 at 09:47 PM]
15W tube is probably consuming about 100W with this set up lol
fluorescent   [30 May, 2017 at 11:55 PM]
Just had it on the power meter, it's consuming Just 19.5w from the mains. Definitely no preheating when the starter button is pressed though as power draw is zero? Very odd. Doesn't start that reliably either. Oh well, a remote ballast box will fix that and wire the button up like a traditional starter arrangement.

Comment 1 to 7 of 7
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