a tip on where to find these black tip fluorescents more easily, especially Westinghouse which are my favorites!! you have amazing lamps in your collection
I repaired an old (80s ish) f20t12 lamp Finding a starter for 120v 20w lamp was the difficult part Of course I bought as many as I could find You can never have too many starters And that lamp's been working daily since 2020 without having to replace anything again
Hey Parrot! The fixtures you have are called “kitchen units”. Tne Manufacturers actually warned against putting these into existing incandescent globe canopy fixtures, because that did not meet both NEC and UL requirements, and recommended mounting directly on a box. The cord, plug, and screw in current tap adapter is why, especially since it was enclosed and not in full view at all times. My early 1940’s fixture sales pamphlets said the attachment to 4 inch shade fixtures is ONLY for temporary display use ONLY! Of course gagillions were used this way with zero issues! 😆 the circline one is a more rare version if these as is the glitter covered unicorn turd 💩 rare 15 watt 18 inch and 33 inch long 25 watt lamps version, as well as a 14 watt 15 inch as well! The 2 foot 20 watt ones are common. I have a metric crap-ton of them from houses we demolished. The older Westinghouse lamps with “AC OR DC” pop up a fair amount. If ran on DC, they need manual or thermal switch starters (the now very rare FS-44) and an on/off switch that changes polarity of the DC each time it is turned on so both cathodes on both ends get used, as only one on one end will be used on DC, otherwise lamp life is halved. If the lamp is flipped, however, in absence of a polarity reverser switch, it will use up the other cathode and get full life! Also, just a heads up. The round fluorescent bulbs are not called “circle line”, bur rather called “Circ-line” all in one single word. And finally-I have a very rare ceiling mount only pair of 32 watt 12 inch single lamp circline fixtures, one looks kinda like yours here, but is 1945 and has a round GE “hockey puck” ballast mounted inside, the center, usually mounting hole holds the ballast only, and 2 holes drilled across from each other use long, usually wood screws to attach it to the ceiling separate from the box in the ceiling! It was in bad shape with rust damage, but I managed to save it. It has a ballast a friend gave me for it, as the original was long gone and a 1960’s small case GE standard potted 30/32/40 watt or 30/40 watt was sitting loose inside. The other is a brand new old stock circa 1946 unit with a shallow pan and an EXTERNAL GE hockey puck ballast in the middle painted white to match the fixture! It is a Progress lighting Co unit! 😋 Cheers man! 👍🏻😊
Woah, thanks for sharing this information! I had no clue what the official name for these things were up until I saw your comment. The one and only one of these I own happens to be a three lamp F14T12 half pipe style fixture. It has GE ballasts. If it weren’t for the date code cheat seemingly erased from the Internet I would be able to get a date off that fixture. What I do know is that it has those fiber board style lampholders, and a remaining two of the original six art deco style lampholder “beauty covers”.
I used to work for a company called Aetna out of Brookline Mass. All I did for a year or more was change light bulbs and ballasts in grocery and retail stores. Often the ballasts were changed while hot as the stores were open for business. I used to know all of the specifications and pin types. My favorite were always the HO cold location fixtures with the 8' tubes. I'm assuming that LED lighting is becoming more popular, but back in the day, a local grocery store would re-lamp their ENTIRE store once every 6 months. Anyone who knows how bright a new bulb/ballast combo is probably understands why.
Super cool! I bet your job was fun! I used to change a lot of those T8 fluorescent light bulbs at Dollar General. Now, at my church, I change all kinds of different light bulbs. Fluorescents, still some incandescents, LEDs, Metal Halides, and lots of other neat light bulbs and fixtures, plus among lots of other things. Jobs like these are so much fun, and they are also very important as well.
Honestly, what that one store did was just wasteful. A fluorescent tube can last way longer than six months even with long duty cycles. New lamps may have been brighter but the brightness was surely good enough only six months in…
@@rs12official yeah I have some t12 flourescents on a 10-15 year old worklight in my basement, the bulbs are a few years old and are on most of the day
