I wonder if this is any way different to the K85E?... maybe like the K85E this is some sort of Electronic / magnetic start ballast? As the K85E have built in pulsestarter with magnetic ballast. Ill upload a photo if you like unless i have already ha

I'm not sure Danny, I still haven't got around to testing it. I've read elsewhere that it's Quickstart?

Tested this today, only taken 6 months lol! The internal capacitor was knackered, only showing about 2uF. As it turns out, it's quite easy to prise the end cap off and cut the cables to the internal cap, and then you just connect a cap across the middle two terminals. It now strikes tubes up reasonably reliably, but it still isn't great, it seems to strike the tube up to a very flickery state, not rectifying, but like a 100Hz flicker that takes a while to settle down. It's nowhere near as reliable as the Parmar 'multi wattage' SRS ballasts I have been using previously

This just popped up in my random photo feed and grabbed my interest. I have one of these but have never tested it. Are you sure it's for 8' 85W or could it be 6' 85W? If 6', that might explain the flickery running on 8', even with a new capacitor?

Lamp current of 0.5A is 8' 85w, 6' would be 0.8A. I had another tinker with this recently, it still does the same thing, starts up with a strong flicker and settles down after 10 minutes or so. I think these have an autotransformer built in and I'm wondering if that is faulty as it's under-driving the lamp too? Not sure there is much I can do to repair this, but I'm hoping I'll work something out one day.

Oh and get yours tried out Nick!

Thanks fluorescent for the confirmation on the current spec. 8' it is then. That's solved my doubts.

No worries. Also looking at how Transtar tend to apply model numbers, if they did a 6' 85w version, I reckon it would have been called 'K685'

Any chance you could bring your K85 to the meet? We could test it if you want and I can bring mine and compare resistance readings