Had to replace some old ballasts in a school this week, dating from the 60s,along with a few tombstones,etc,installed the the regular,or so we thought 120-277 50/60Hz ballasts,no go,however,if we connected them phase to phase,about 425v,slightly high,ok,although buzzing a bit,but when we hooked a 3phase variac at home to test,and set the voltage to about 340v they worked quite well,which would be about 600v phase to phase.Where in the world do they use that voltage,South America or the Middle East,perhaps?
Weird ballast voltages
- Thread starter tek9
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jumper
Senior Member
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- 3 Hr 2 Min from Winged Horses
347V single phase fluorescent ballasts are commonly used in Canada IIRC. 600/347V is used there a lot.
Thank you,the school purchased over 1000 of these,and with the shortage of materials caused by the recent bushfires,we're looking at some kind of auto transformer,to reduce the 415v to 340,guy has got multi tap trans that have a 347 volt tap,so that's what we'll prolly do.POCO has already reduced voltage to 410 on request.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
Are they marked 120-277? If so unless you got them from some place that took your money and doesn't ever want to hear from you again, unless for another purchase, then why not contact them and have them make it right? Sounds a like a lot less hassle and cost compared to installing the auto transformers.
The schools''maintenance guy'',and I use the term loosely purchased them,there is obviously corruption involved as the the supply house is owned by his brother,his father owns the transformer company and his wife is the principal,the old ballasts are fine,not leaking oil or nothing,some liberal at a p/c meeting said they contain asbestos,not true,but these were mil spec devices,and although rated at 60hz,were working well with no heating.The same guy that complained about my daughter carrying a gun and charging 600 bucks to reset a breaker at 3 oclock in the morning on one of their hot water units.Element had a leak to ground,she replaced the breaker,flushed the unit of sediment,fitted a new element with a new anode two days later,another 500 bucks please,time is money.
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