Fluorescent tube lights. Leaving one out?

[Kelemvor]

Howdy,

I have some standard 36" or 48" or whatever fluorescent lights in my basement. Each ballast takes two tube bulbs. One area is just storage and the two bulbs makes it way more bright than I need. If I take one tube out, the light still works, but I'm not sure if that's bad for the ballast for any reason.

I figure it'd save me the electricity of the second bulb but I don't want to cause the ballast to die prematurely because it's only lighting one half all the time.

Anyone know if it matters or not?

 

[xanis]

I wouldn't think it would be bad for the ballast. I've left tubes out in the ballasts in my garage back home before and it hasn't caused any problems.

 

[Batti]

Typical ballasts are rated for one of two tubes. You are only using half of what it can do, so no harm. Not sure that you'll be using half the power though, but you should save.

 

[Flammable]

i always only use one tube...hell i have that light in my room right now with only 1 tube

 

[TMarshall]

Depneds on how nice the ballast is. If it is a cheapo Home Depot strip light then you will be overdriving the one lamp a little bit which will shorten the life. But when they last 10,000-15,000 hours are you really going to care?

 

[Kelemvor]

Well, I had the $5 Menards type which died out after a while. So now I have the $15 version (which I already had a few of and they work great). So hopefully everything will be OK.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

The local walmart I go to used to not have skylights but now that it does its entire lighting system is composed of about a hundred or so 2light baskets with only one light each.

So yeah, it works fine.