I am the electrician for a large county jail in Texas. We have 28 buildings of which 19 are 10 to 15 years old and 1 is 20 years old.
They all still have magnetic ballasts with T12 lamps. There are over 10,000 2 lamp fixtures. They are almost all 2 lampers, a very small amount of 3 and 4 lampers.
The state of texas passed a buncha laws about local goverments saving electricity. So my engineer boss told me to look into getting electronic ballasts and retrofiting the fixtures.
Spoke to some salesmen and got conflicting views. We have a contract with a vendor that sells Advance so I have concentrated on that brand. I have also looked at some GE ballasts that sure look good on paper, they cost more than advance.
Best I can figure out. there are three choices
rapid start series operation, cheap and use moderate juice
instant start parallel operation, cheap and use the least juice
programmed start not sure if series or parallel, expensive and use the most juice.
One salesman said to get instant start because they would save the most electricity and it would not affect lamp life.
Another salesman said to get rapid start because the instant start will shorten lamp life.
Yet another said to get programmed start because its the best with the newest technology and longest lamp life.
Anyone got advice or real world stories on how to do this? Any brands to avoid will be good to. Any info of any sort will help.
I am thinking of getting multi voltage ones that can run on 120 or 277. They have interal electronics that moniter the voltage. Sure seem goof proof as we have both voltages in some buildings. Can use some real world advice on these to.
My other concern is power surges, we lose power often and in the newer buildings with motorola electronics, we need to replace a few every time theres an outage.
Many thanks
