It's a 13w T5..I don't think it's the tube. Checked with a multimeter. One end is a little black and slightly less resistance there but 16 and 20 ohms respectively. It's like sometimes it will light up, but u have to take the tube out and put it back in, then plug it back up and switch it on and it might come on...but if u turn it off it probably won't turn on again without fucking with the whole thing again. It doesn't flicker or anything it's bright as fuck. I looked inside and I can't even see a ballast in there just a switch....that could make it hard to start . Cheap ass peice of shit...I'm trippin too hard for this shit I feel like I'm gonna get electrocuted fucking with that shit. Now I'm watching it....it seems that once it's on it stays on...it's just getting it to turn on is the problem....and it's just a simple switch.. It's hard to see anything inside of the fixture but I didn't see any kind of ballast in there, or even a starter...it ain't even heavy enough to have a fuckin ballast in there.... I'm gonna have to investigate this further...but I'll probably end up breaking the thing in the process but it's already halfway broken IMO
It kinda sounds like maybe the contacts are loose or dirty? That's why repositioning the bulb fixes the problem?
i don't know i took end peices off and put it back together. It looks in worse shape physically now cuz i kinda fucked it up cracked the plastic housing but it works now. Its some kinda of cheap electronic ballast in there, but i never did see it, i'm trippin and i didn't look down into it with a flash light. It may be that once its heated up it starts fine but not when its cold. I swapped the tube orientation, one end is a little blacker but like i said it tests fine with a ohmmeter. FYI...shorting the pins with a staple bent around the pins carefully will fix some tubes where the filament is burnt out on one end but this is probably bad for the ballast...a proper resistor would be the proper thing to do i guess....or just buy a new fuckin tube right? it's not like they cost much...i just dont feel like goin out to get one right now guess i should turn it off for a bit and let it cool down and see if it still has the problem later...i really dont think its the drugs. Sober people have seen the lamp do this too
^it works with iron ballasts. electronic ballast you'd have to use a resistor...i don't see how it could tell the difference it seems to work fine now...weird ass shit...it'll probably never do that shit again, or maybe it will idfk! lol its crazy how there's oldschool t12 lamps all over the city runnin on iron ballast probably 50 years old PCB's and all and that shit still works...flickery but it works. And then you get the new electronic shit that's supposed to last forever but it seems like that shit fails quicker. The electronics fail cuz they run it too hot, they don't really design it to last i guess.
I don't know much about flourescent lighting, but I am sad to see the old fashioned light bulbs phased out now.
You can still buy them...their light is most pleasing to the eye and is fully dimmable. It's not energy efficient tho. LED bulbs are the most efficient I believe, at least as efficient as fluorescent lighting and the technology now is very good. The light is almost indistinguishable from a regular bulb, and dimmable too (although it won't go quite as low but almost). And their common enough now to be affordable...like I just saw them earlier today in Home Depot for like 6 bucks, at least one brand (40w equivalent...I think it really uses about 4 watts). Their electronics run hot too tho, and it's too early to see how long they will last...but the LED chips themselves are good for at least 100,000 hours of burn time I like the 72 watt halogen bulbs from iKEA...I think that is my favorite light bulb lol
