well the bulbs are designed to consume a certian amount of power at a spicific current.. the 32 watt and the 28 watt are based on the same curent. not knowing what the current requirment is exactly i can only use a false # to explain.. say the current is .25 amps that thease bulbs are designed at.. the 32 watt one will will consume 32 watts with a supply curent of .25 amps.. which for the same amprage the other one will consume 28 watts.. so all the ballast does is act as a regulated current supply, and as long as you don't excede the total wattage rating for the ballast it will run any PC that requires a curent supply of 0.25 amp. so now you can look at the 4' floressent tubes in your kitchen.. the standard is a 40 watt NO tube, that will consume 40 watts on supplied current of 400mA, a few years ago when this power smart stuff started there was a version of the 4' NO released that only consumes 32 watts on a supplied current of 400mA so you save 8 watts of power by switching to the energy saver bulb.. and all you have to switch is the bulb its self.

SamW, you will probably consume a little more than the wattage of the bulbs as some power is lost to heat.. depends on the eficiency of the ballast..

Steve

My head hurts :oops: :oops:

I guess I think of it this way, a watt is a watt, no matter how you slice it. Wattage is consumption, and a 32W will consume 32W, and a 28W will consume 28W. Now when we start to factor in losses at the ballast, my head starts to hurt.

BTW I just looked at AH supply's bulb listings, and they supply 36W bulbs. Those can be had at a reasonable price. I am wondering if there is a chance they would fire in a 32W application.

hey samw you got a pm