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Overdriven Fluorescent LightOverdriving fluorescent lamps is a method of getting more light from each bulb than is normally obtained. It involves taking the light fixture apart and rewiring the insides. Only the newer electronic ballasts can be used. The older magnetic ballasts will self-destruct if you try to rewire them. Each electronic ballast normally drives either two or four bulbs. The ballasts are then tied together in such a way that a normal two-bulb ballast now drives a single bulb and a four-bulb ballast drives only two bulbs, sometimes it only drives one. Usually, an extra ballast is put into the fixture and wired into the bulb circuit. For instance, if you have four bulbs in the fixture and it uses a four-bulb ballast, this rewired ballast now drives two bulbs and another four-bulb ballast is put in the fixture and used to drive the remaining two bulbs. This rewiring, properly done, is not dangerous and the bulbs wont blow up, they simply become brighter. The bulbs are limited by their design to draw only so much current and no more. If you double the amount of available current, you wont get a bulb thats two times brighter, however, because the efficiency drops off a bit. So even after the doubled current is made available, the bulb only gets 1.7 times brighter. You can do a 2x or 4x overdrive with a four-lamp ballast, but the efficiency drops. (4x output into one bulb is only 2.4 times as bright as normal). Put another way; the output of the bulbs does not increase in direct ratio to the amount of power the ballast consumes. The more input you use to overdrive a fluorescent bulb, the less efficient it becomes, as it is starting to drift out of the bulb's optimal design parameters. Overdriven fluorescent light bulbs are generally used when there isnt enough room to put in more bulbs to increase the light. Sometimes more light intensity is needed in a small focused area. The discussions about overdriving are found on forums all over the WWW. These include gardening (seed starting), fish/aquarium (freshwater and salt water), houseplants, studio photography, reptiles, electronics and others. http://www.geocities.com/teeley2/overdrv1.html wiring discussion
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