Advance - ICN-3TTP-40-SC - Centium Electronic Plug-In CFL Ballast

Let's talk about ballast. What does a ballast do? It has two main functions. It starts the lamp and it controls lamp operation. All gas discharge lamps: linear fluorescent, compact fluorescent, and HID require a ballast. Now there's basically two types of fluorescent ballasts. There's an electronic ballast and there's a magnetic ballast. So here you see the T12 magnetic and T8 electronic. The T12 magnetic has gone away. You can't buy it nor manufacture it in the United States and that's because this system here is about 58 lumens per watt while the T8 system down here is 98 lumens per watt. We had to upgrade it to the new fluorescent systems because they're more energy-efficient. Fluorescent electronic ballasts come in three types. Instant start. The lamp comes on very fast and when you have one lamp fail, the other stays lighted. The second type is program start and that takes a little