Electric peeps - ballast question

[DSlater]

Originally Posted by The Guy

Means if your ballast is rated @ 128watts and you run 1 39watt t5 the ballast will run a lot cooler and last much longer than if you ran 3 39 watt bulbs which heats up the ballast much more. The higher the load/bulbs used the harder the ballast has to work to fire them.

I think this may have been true with the older magnetic ballasts but I'm not sure if this is the case for the small electronic ballasts.
From my experience with fluorescent lighting, if a ballast is trying to fire a lamp that is faulty or not there, the ballast will eventually fail. Same with HID.

Fluorescent lighting "general". 39W lamp will draw 39W until it gets older, then I'm told it will draw a bit more. Over ballasting a lamp will cause the lamp to burn out quicker. Using a 2 or 3 lamp ballast for a single lamp will cause the ballast to fail quicker.

I have never used the workhorse series of ballasts, they look adaptable to different situations. Probably more expensive and why I don't see them on jobs. If you can find the right wiring diagram for what you want to set up I'd go with that. Wiring diagrams should be on their website.