nice! I have been acquiring a stash of Arlen EFS electronic starters before they all vanish against the LED onslaught, I have got a few EFS120's and some EFS600's but the elusive EFS600UVX escapes me, I tried to order a couple that where showing as in stock from a specialist lighting wholesaler, but I sadly got messed about with incorrect substitutes, which is quite frustrating as I do have some US and European VHO tubes in my collection which I wish to start as gently as possible I am especially curious to know what sort of triac the EFS600UVX uses, the TN22 is only rated for 2A max, but im pretty sure the short circuit current of a 1.5A sun-bed choke may well exceed that... as an aside note on regular ol EFS600, I noticed there seems to be 2 distinct types, older sorts that are rated "30W-125W" and newer sorts rated "4W-125W" and what I noticed is the 30-125W always starts the tubes nice and cleanly, a solid preheat follow by a clean strike just like in your video but the more modern EFS600 4-125W sorts, seem to not strike the tube as cleanly, they preheat the tube for a few seconds, then while still preheating the tube, they also try to the strike the tube, so for about a second or so its stuck in this in between state with the ballast buzzing loudly as the triac pulse, before it finally allows the tube to strike I never liked how they do that, so I always look for the older 30W-125W ones, but I do wonder what the difference is between the 2 sorts to cause this differing behaviour?
HPS lamps require ignition pulses on the order of 2kV to 5kV which would kill this circuit. Making a conventional 3 wire HPS ignitor would be easier as those only have 4 COTS parts.
nice! I have been acquiring a stash of Arlen EFS electronic starters before they all vanish against the LED onslaught, I have got a few EFS120's and some EFS600's but the elusive EFS600UVX escapes me, I tried to order a couple that where showing as in stock from a specialist lighting wholesaler, but I sadly got messed about with incorrect substitutes, which is quite frustrating as I do have some US and European VHO tubes in my collection which I wish to start as gently as possible
I am especially curious to know what sort of triac the EFS600UVX uses, the TN22 is only rated for 2A max, but im pretty sure the short circuit current of a 1.5A sun-bed choke may well exceed that...
as an aside note on regular ol EFS600, I noticed there seems to be 2 distinct types, older sorts that are rated "30W-125W" and newer sorts rated "4W-125W" and what I noticed is the 30-125W always starts the tubes nice and cleanly, a solid preheat follow by a clean strike just like in your video
but the more modern EFS600 4-125W sorts, seem to not strike the tube as cleanly, they preheat the tube for a few seconds, then while still preheating the tube, they also try to the strike the tube, so for about a second or so its stuck in this in between state with the ballast buzzing loudly as the triac pulse, before it finally allows the tube to strike
I never liked how they do that, so I always look for the older 30W-125W ones, but I do wonder what the difference is between the 2 sorts to cause this differing behaviour?
Could you try it with a hps bulb?
HPS lamps require ignition pulses on the order of 2kV to 5kV which would kill this circuit. Making a conventional 3 wire HPS ignitor would be easier as those only have 4 COTS parts.