Changing a Fluorescent Light Ballast?

Susan Sanders-Kinzel
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March 8, 20050 found this helpful

Ballasts normally have a black/white side and a color side.
The black and white wires are connected to the power wires coming from the switch.
The colored wires get connected to the tube holders.
The colors are normally (for a two tube fixture)
yellow
yellow
red
blue
The red and the blue go to the left ends,
and the yellow wires go to the right ends of the tubes.
Sometimes, if the four wires are all the same color, then they are of different lengths. In that case treat the longer ones as if they were yellow, and the shorter ones as if they were red and blue.

The incoming power wires on the black and white end of the ballast are always black and white. That's required by code.

red -----oooooooooooooooooo-----yellow
blue-----oooooooooooooooooo-----yellow

red---------\
blue---------BALLAST --------black-------switch -------panel
yellow-------/ \--------white-----------------------panel
yellow------/

Four lamp fixtures are the same, with two ballasts taking care of two lamps each.

Have FUN!
DearWebby
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beanygurl

March 8, 20050 found this helpful

Here's the info from ehow.com

www.ehow.com/how_374_replace-fluorescent-lightbulb...

(scroll down for the ballast directions)

Hi, beanygurl & Thrifty_Fun!

Thanks for responding! :-D

I forgot to mention that the tubes are round. Where would the ballast be located? And will it look the same?

Also, do I need to turn the power off to the whole house or just to the light?

Thanks in advance,

Bob

Jackie Martin

March 9, 20050 found this helpful

Try the site: Howthingswork.com. You should be able to find an answer there.

Try this ...

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ballast+in+fluoresent...

Syd

We recently changed a ballast in my art studio...and need to do another one for that matter. The fixture is over 20 years old. When my husband removed the old heavy black box style ballast, it had model numbers that we were able to match at Home Depot. Hope this helps.

My Website: marilynart.hostingisfree.com/
Ebay: members.ebay.com/.../

This was very helpful to me. Everything was just as you said except I can't undo the old ballast's wires (red, yellow and blue pairs) from the tube holders. I don't want to yank them apart and break something. What's the trick here? rdelion AT telus.net