That sounds like an excellent plan. The reason being is that I have been having some unconfirmed misgivings about that overdriving business. Originally I believe the whole idea called for ELECTRONIC ballasts. Most of the ballasts I saw used here were at best Hybrids. IOW they were just tar ballasts with SOME electronic components like a capacitor to provide starting kick. I may be wrong, but I suspect you were not getting the amount of light you thought you were getting. At least any of the setups I saw were not as bright as I expected.

ouch...this is going to hurt...turning on my brain

This is correct. I had a long explanation of the differneces between rapid start, instant start and program start..but after consideration..and not wanting to bore everyone to death I think it is likely as simple as the type of bulb you expect to power with them ... T12 versus T8.

I recently discovered first hand the T8's need more power to start and to operate than the T12's

IMO.

Really. Wow, and I thought the push for T8 was all supposed to be "green" and less energy consumption and all that. Or is it just that the T8's have less Mercury or something then (which of course would be a good reason)

the bigest thing is a 32 watt T8 has the same light out put as a 40 watt T12.

so they are saving you 8 watts


Steve

I had questioned the quality of the ballasts purchased at Home Depot. They did not seem to give off the same amount of light that my Advance ballasts did.

I have the Advance REL-4P32-SC that Burnabyreefer had said to use in his original thread on overdriving. I believe these are true electronic ballasts. I am running both T12 and T8 bulbs, but not mixing them on the same ballast.

I am currently (not a pun) running at 2X so I have 2 bulbs per ballast. So by removing one ballast and two bulbs I figure I could add one Workhorse 7 and 4 55W CFL in their place.

If you could get a quote on the GE 9325K 55W PC bulbs, I would be interested in that, Kim. I believe the UPC is 043 168458511, at a case quantity of 6. Maybe the price will be right.

Don't listen to this guy :roll:

I meant to say the T8's need more power to start than the T12's but less power to operate.

In searching though I did find this interesting tidbit.
http://www.americanfluorescent.com/page12.html
Note the little chart down the page a bit..the aprox input watts. If you are using the lamp wattage to calculate your power bill you will be quite a bit off.

A missing piece in this discussion (power = current*voltage*PF) is the power factor. The power factor is the lag is the phase between currrent and voltage and is usually arround .9 and it applies to all ballasts.

Also of interest is this comparison of the lumens per watt of the various CF/fluorescent incandesent lights
http://www.americanfluorescent.com/page11.html

Here's some more questions for ya:

I'm looking to OD my 2-4ft NO's but my fixture has a remote ballast. I see that Fulham makes a Longhorse model for remove duty but they are not a regularly stocked item nor will the larger ballast fit in my current case.

So are any of you using a Workhorse remotely? If so what sort of run length?

Secondly, what would be good choice to OD the 2-4 footers? Workhorse 5, 6, or 7?

TIA

[quote="Tau2301"]That sounds right. As I said those Hometown ballasts were not the right thing to use, and I am sure the light output was no better than hooking them up normally.

[quote="rcipema"]Sorry Bob, I think your incorrect. I hooked one up OD and had 4 at NO going beside it and you could see an obvious diffrence in the light output of the bulb