Gosh darnit there are some things that thumping should fix (candy machines) and some things that should be scientifically fixable.

So this cheapo flo light with electric ballast comes on 50% of the time. 100% if you give it a little thunk. Swapped the tubes. No change. Rotated the tubes a little and that improved the reliability for a day. I'm guessing bad contacts, but is there any way the ballast could be at fault here? I have no idea what the age of this thing is.

thx,
FM

Could be but I'd put $$ on it being a loose connection at one of the "endsockets".. That or the fixture may not be grounded properly.. I don't know how true it is NOW but it used to be that Fluorescent lights had to be near grounded metal to start.. touching the fixture or tube of a n ungrounded fixture sometimes would get them to start...

A.D

I can testify to the grounding, but I will open up the tombstones and see if that's the culprit.

thx,
FM

Yeah... when you're paying $7.99 for a fixture, one of the places they cheapen 'em up is the contacts.


And the reflector

And the ballast


and the cord

and the housing.....

No expenses are spared to make them as cheaply as possible.

The combined time spent posting to this tread is already valued at, what, about five times the value of the fixture?

Seven, but who's counting?