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yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 05:45pm 14 Apr 2015

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Gizmo's excellent topic on adapting low power downlights has prompted me to dust of a project I have ignored.

According to circuit notebook in silicon chip May2012 the ballast out of a GE 20w or phillips tornado 24w compact fluro will drive a standard 18- 36 watt fluro tube.

Has anyone had a go at this?

I have an excess of the old iron transformer luminaires in a pile in the shed, nothing to lose by trying one I guess.
The article did say that the aishi 400v 6.0uF cap on the tornado is prone to leakage and recommended replacing it with a 6.8 or 10.0uF.

With a little bit of finesse I think I could reuse the insulating cover and not have to mount it in a box.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

sparksandsmoke

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Joined: 14/05/2015
Location: Ireland
Posts: 12

Posted: 07:37pm 14 May 2015

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Hello y2,

Long term occasional lurker here, first time poster.

yahoo2 said Has anyone had a go at this?

I have thrown something very similar together on the bench, but no long term tests done. A tube of approx 800mm (30W?) hooked up to an inverter/driver board from a Philips 8W CFL. Instant (reliably so) start and what appears to be full brightness. No indication of anything getting unduly hot or stressed.

Both the tube and the donor CFL were new (GE and European Philips, respectively), both bought at clearance sale prices. With a total investment of about 2USD I'm not too worried about the risk of letting the magic smoke out.

I'll get exact details of the components and a picture or two if that's of any interest?

yahoo2

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Joined: 05/04/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 1166

Posted: 01:21am 15 May 2015

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Thanks,
I had a try myself and ran into two issues.

the first was I couldn't solder to the high voltage wire on the Phillips unit, it seems the factory didn't either the filament sized wires are wrapped around the pins on the board, at the time I only had my small iron with me so I couldn't get enough heat to tin the pins and solder directly to them.

the second issue is the drive board is a little wide to fit into the space inside the case of a single flouro luminaire. It is still a work in progress for me while I sort those wrinkles out.

I am always interested in other peoples experiments, post away! I am sure we will get something constructive out of it.
I have to say $2 is pretty impressive.

I'm confused, no wait... maybe I'm not...

sparksandsmoke

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Joined: 14/05/2015
Location: Ireland
Posts: 12

Posted: 10:39am 13 Jun 2015

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Apologies for my late reply, life got in the way.

The donor was the 8 Watt version of this lamp:

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