Nice new lighting bench! I like the F25T8 strip light! Congrats on your RU-vid success so far! I have been on here for two years. Growth may seem slow at first, but with dedication you will see success! You can do it! About the fluorescent lamps, I’m not quite sure if removing the lamps causes damage the ballast. I tend to think not though, lots of people do it with seemingly no issue. The kind of lamps you have are F40T12 lamps. These are normally 40 watts each. The 34-watt version you have is the so-called energy-saver version, which operates on the same ballast (with certain exceptions) and saves a bit of energy versus the regular version. These lamps cannot run on preheat F40T12 ballasts, older rapid-start F40T12 ballasts, or some residential-grade F40T12 rapid-start ballasts. Generally, if you have a high power factor (commercial grade) rapid-start ballast made in the 1980s or after, you can run energy-savers. The ballast will say if it can run energy-savers, so check to make sure before installing them. The warmer fluorescent lamps you have are 3000K, saw it on the etch for one. The colder ones look to be 6500K. The one you removed is 4100K. As for the number on the lamp, “F” stands for fluorescent. “40” is the watts (but only on bi-pin lamps, for slimline and high-output it’s the length of the fixture it goes in). Then after that there is usually a “T” followed by a number. The number is the diameter of the lamp in eighth inches. So a T12 is 12/8 in. and a T8 is 8/8 in. On the F40T12, they usually leave out the “T12” for simplicity I guess. Then there is usually a color code. In the case of the lamp you showed, “CW” means halophosphate cool white. Then there may be other codes as well, indicating energy savers, high-output lamps, rapid-start only lamps, or low-mercury lamps, stuff like that.
Cool! You sould try connecting the red and black wire for the dryer motor. 8:36 F40 means 40 inches actually, but that rod looks like it's 60 inches. I'm not too sure on that.
