18 Month Old Helvar T5 HF Ballast (Dead & Utter, Utter Crap)

Replaced this today. I fitted it about 18 months ago, it's been on 24/7 but that's still a very poor life at about 13,000 hours. The GE Starcoat tubes fitted were still fine.

It's been a pain since day one, it started life with (new) OSRAM tubes that it refused to drive properly, it kept shutting them down for no reason, and then it was allowing the tubes to rectify/light half wave & didn't shut them down! The Osrams were swapped for the GE Starcoat's that it still shut down a few times when they were new for no reason at all.

And now it's burnt itself out completely, note the black skid mark in the centre. Another one of these ballasts was replaced last week by someone else, that one had the same black mark and a similarity crap lifespan (about 2 years).

Note: Used with 5ft HE 35w tubes in a cheepo Newlec fitting.