kd3pc
Well-known member
I recently bought 10 residential light fixtures for my garage, to replace the temporary ( since this time last year) mix of screw in bulbs, incandescent, LED, CFL. I like to tell myself that 7 various screw in bulbs, all less than 75 watts could provide decent light.
But I digress, since my garage is part of my ham radio shack, and while using digital modes and listening to local FM broadcast radio, it was important to have RF free garage lighting.
Sadly when I put up the first two fixtures and turned them on, the FM broad cast was obliterated, nothing coming through but RF noise. Ham radio was even worse.
I called Cooper, the parent company of Metalux and spoke with their tech support and found out that there should be a different ballast in the fixtures, I had, that were marked residential.
In short order, the tech support girl, made arrangements for ballast to be sent out. Within a few days, I received ballasts from Keystone Technologies, and although I had some labor involved in swapping out the old ones for the new ones, they are as quiet as can be.
Yesterday, I go to the shack and turn on the lights over the workstation, and finish up putting the other 5 lights up. 15-20 minutes later one of the workstation lights goes out, both bulbs, nothing lit. I check the voltages and they are good, feel the ballast - not too hot and then turn things off to check the pin sockets for good connections. After 10-15 minutes I turn the lights back on and they both work again, and continue to do so until the bad one shuts off again, about 10 minutes later.
Although I am not happy about it, I have to wait until this morning to call support. I call support at Cooper, they say to call Keystone and I do so, leaving a message for them. Within the hour they call back, I explain what is happening, and ask about failure rates, etc. Tells me they sell tens of thousands, and will send me a new ballast out.
Both Keystone Tech and Cooper, had failures out of the box, but both stepped up and provided repair parts quickly and these parts WORK as a residential ballast should.
Works for me! Now back to the ham shack.
But I digress, since my garage is part of my ham radio shack, and while using digital modes and listening to local FM broadcast radio, it was important to have RF free garage lighting.
Sadly when I put up the first two fixtures and turned them on, the FM broad cast was obliterated, nothing coming through but RF noise. Ham radio was even worse.
I called Cooper, the parent company of Metalux and spoke with their tech support and found out that there should be a different ballast in the fixtures, I had, that were marked residential.
In short order, the tech support girl, made arrangements for ballast to be sent out. Within a few days, I received ballasts from Keystone Technologies, and although I had some labor involved in swapping out the old ones for the new ones, they are as quiet as can be.
Yesterday, I go to the shack and turn on the lights over the workstation, and finish up putting the other 5 lights up. 15-20 minutes later one of the workstation lights goes out, both bulbs, nothing lit. I check the voltages and they are good, feel the ballast - not too hot and then turn things off to check the pin sockets for good connections. After 10-15 minutes I turn the lights back on and they both work again, and continue to do so until the bad one shuts off again, about 10 minutes later.
Although I am not happy about it, I have to wait until this morning to call support. I call support at Cooper, they say to call Keystone and I do so, leaving a message for them. Within the hour they call back, I explain what is happening, and ask about failure rates, etc. Tells me they sell tens of thousands, and will send me a new ballast out.
Both Keystone Tech and Cooper, had failures out of the box, but both stepped up and provided repair parts quickly and these parts WORK as a residential ballast should.
Works for me! Now back to the ham shack.