I have been fighting with lighting issues for some time now. Color shifting in brand new equipment to be specific.
I attributed it to crappy bulbs, and ballasts. Went on a little rant about how
Coral Vue makes good ballasts but their bulbs suck and should be avoided.
Well this simply is not true in the least. The problems I am having ( and a hand full of others in the same boat that I found out about recently ) are not related to the quality of the bulb and or ballast in any way shape or form.
The problem stems from redistributed electric purchased by the village I live in.
Mogul bulbs operate fine where as DE bulbs run like doo doo. This is all due to sine wave degradation, and frequency changes. the sine wave enters the ballasted already degraded and out of frequency so the ballast has to work three - four times as hard to clean it back up and out put a good sine and proper frequency. ti doesn't do this all in one shot though. It does it constantly. Constantly adjusting the sine, and frequency with in during operation.
This translates to color shifts in double ended bulbs. BUT the same electronic ballast being used to run mogul socket bulb do not suffer nearly as bad. It is said because they are single ended and current does not have to literally go THOUGH one end of the bulb and out the other to complete a circuit that they are not a finicky and are not as effected by dirty electric.
I have been in contact with many major brand manufacturers lately.
They all had GREAT customer service and were more then willing to help me solve my problems. ( I did not even own any of the products of some of them that I had called and asked for advice. I had in the past but not at this time. Ushio is an example there. AWESOME people ! )
Two stand out in helping me solve this the most though.
Ushio and Coral Vue.
Coral Vue shines through the brightest though IMO.
Not that any one else did not go out of their way to help me
(because they sure did take the time to answer my questions the best way they could ! )
but Coral Vue actually tried to simulate identical conditions in their shop to re create what was going on, as well as went far and beyond any thing they were responsible for in helping me solve this problem.
Last year when this 1st happened I actually got upset and sent a new set of Coral Vue 250 watt 20K DE's back and got my money refunded thinking it was the bulbs. There was no questioning me about it, no hassles. Just returned, and refunded after they arrived.
the new dual 250 w ballast I received a couple weeks ago seemed to be running abnormally hot to me ( now let me stress it seemed to be to ME not that it actually was because I had no previous experience with dual ballasts. ). Well I contacted Dave at Coral Vue directly via email and asked him what the deal was. AGAIN... no hassles, no run around NO BS.
Last week I asked about it, today I am sitting here starring at two brand new 250 watt electronic ballasts. I am shipping him the dual ballasts back this Monday.
So obviously after receiving such amazing customer service and product warranty I seriously felt compelled to share it with you guys while at the same time retracting and or correcting anything negative I may have said in the past because it is apparent now it was not their product at all. It was my electric ! They are a stand up company and I would, and will give them my business again. As well as Ushio.
