workhorse ballasts and T5's

[midgetwaiter]

I had some time to kill so I looked around for some info on this, it really is a bunch of hand waving.

The idea that the workhorse ballasts will give you shorter bulb life due to the "hard" start makes some sense. From that perspective though you need to reframe the question. If you are comparing a $40 mass produced part to a $180 Ice Cap specialty product it makes more sense to say that the Ice Cap gives extended bulb life. The only way you can make a good judgment is to get a decent idea just what "extended" is. If we're talking 10% then it would take quite a while to justify that extra $140 just based on this one aspect.

Has anyone ever found some numbers on this?