Ballasts For T8 Fluorescent Lights

[Red89gt]

Guys hoping you can steer me in the right direction. I am in the process of removing metal halide hummers from my garage and replacing with nice quiet bright fluorescent tube T8's. The prior owner has one T8 fixture in a sea of annoying humming halides which leads me to believe he was starting to change over as the halides burned out.

Problem is this one T8 fixture is not playing friendly with my radio. I am guessing it is a commercial fixture as the prior owner did most things overkill. Is it as easy as changing out the ballast to get a residential version that won't cause interference? It is a 4 bulb fixture I would like to keep if at all possible.

Can this be bought at big box store and if so what part am I looking for as far as ratings?
Brands that are known better than others? i.e. Honda was known better than a Yugo

Whenever I changed ballasts in the past I just took them in and matched them up right in the aisle, went home and installed and never gave a second thought. I would like to go and buy and have on hand when I have a minute to climb up and change this out.

Thank you.

 

[Mustang51js]

My friend had a issue just like that,he changed ballasts and that didn't work. He got filters and that didn't work either. The only thing that worked is led bulbs and we removed the ballasts. I told him to try another radio first since it was an old radio but he insisted it was fine.

 

[raddksn]

The new style electronic ballasts kill FM reception.
Only thing I can think to try is get your antenna outside the building.

 

[Red89gt]

Uggg, I will see what I can do, I will check out the ballast on the light this morning and see if it is residential rated for grins.
Thanks for the responses.

I have other fluorescent in the garage and only this one is killing my reception. It might get removed and backed over with my wife'd truck today.
Sounds like a shielded cable run and antenna up and away in the attic may be in my future.

Was able to look up other info on google this morning, never had to deal with and wasn't aware how easy it is to convert t12 to t8, I will be saving some money with fixtures I already have

 

[Kevin C]

Look at the label on the ballast in your existing fixture. It will have some info about FCC compliance. Ballasts listed as residential will have lower levels of interference (Class B).

A rule of thumb is if it says 120 Volts its residential, multi voltage models are commercial.

Two paths for electrical noise; conducted and radiated. The radiated it typically from the tube itself and the conducted is noise on the electrical line. The electronic ballasts operate the tube at a much higher frequency, so there is the potential for that as a source.

My first step is to see if your have a residential rated ballast. There are steps that you can take to reduce EMI (electrical noise). While less efficient (and flicker prone), old school magnetic ballasts are kind of the gold standard for low EMI.

As you mentioned, a remote antenna or a different music source. I stream my music through WIFI. LED based light fixtures should have a lot lower radiated electrical noise.

 

[Red89gt]

Was a commercial ballast. I swapped it out and the interference went with it.
No static radio is back. This board rules, thanks guys.