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Old 05-09-2005, 10:29 PM
BCOrchidGuy BCOrchidGuy is offline
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Thanks for the replies folks,

Marie, my understanding is that green would be a lower spectrum than blue so I'd assume your tube is either old or having issues. As spectrum increases light should go from Red, to Orange to Yellow, to Green to Blue to Indigo to Ultraviolet. That being said maybe the extra current is altering the way the phosphours react. I assume that you're using a tri phosphour so maybe the one phosphour likes the increase in current more than the other two or maybe two like it more than the other one. I assume the phosphours are all primary colours IE Red, Yellow and Blue.

Rikko, in a fluorescent tube the phosphours ( and possibly gas?) are excited by the electrical current (I believe). See if I'm completely flaking out here but, if the voltage is constant IE 120 (117) then the current (amperage) would go up (?????) so is it just intensity that goes up? If that's the case then great but if the colour actually changes that may be bad (maybe good though too). Ideally I could use a daylight deluxe tube (5500k) and over drive it to say 7500k or even better and then use the actinic blue and maybe have a decent appearance.

I understand that Metal Halides would just burn brighter and brighter until they burned out if we didn't have a ballast that limited the power consumption but do fluorescents do that as well? Can you overdrive or underdrive fluorescents on a tar ballast or is it only possible with an electronic ballast.

Doug
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